


The Iron Sole Alchemist

by Howlin_the_Werewolf



Series: The Iron Sole Alchemist [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Consent, F/M, Gen, Genocide, Holocaust, Medical Torture, Original Character(s), POV First Person, POV Original Character, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 43
Words: 169,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3740650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlin_the_Werewolf/pseuds/Howlin_the_Werewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set around and after the canon of the 2003 anime, this follows the adventures of a young man from Liore inspired to take up Alchemy after Edward and Alphonse Elric deposed the False Prophet Cornello.  Along the way, he stumbles through the aftermath of the Elric brother's adventures and must face a terrible threat that was left behind.  Ultimately mounting a rescue mission beyond the Gate to bring the brothers home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Watch That First Step.

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 1) Watch that first step.  
by Howlin  
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

 

. . .

Alchemy.

This mysterious and contradictory force had dominated my life, even before my encounter with Edward Elric gave that force a name.

I came from a place that used to be called Liore. Like everyone else at the time, I believed that Father Cornello was a prophet working miracles in the name of the sun god, Lito. Still, even then, ignorant as I was, I was questioning the established dogma.

I didn't question the father's power, nor did I doubt its source in the sun god. I questioned the motivations of the sun god. Why bestow his gifts on us and not on all those on whom his light falls? With the arrival of the Fullmetal Alchemist, I got my answer, but like every other answer I've ever gotten, it only led to further questions.

The false prophet Cornello had been able to manipulate us because we were ignorant. I was resolved to never let that happen to me again. I left for Central that day, not long after the Elrics.

When I got off the train in Central, I was overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the big city. I was snapped out of my wonderment by a bit of gossip I overheard.

"If the killer's really so dangerous that he's getting away with targeting State Alchemists, how does moving the people most able to catch him out of Central make us more safe?"

"Hopefully, with all the Alchemists running away from Central, the killer will follow."

"Excuse me, miss," I said. "Did I just overhear you saying that all the alchemists have left Central?"

"That's right, young man."

"Damn. The only reason I came to Central in the first place was to learn Alchemy."

I wandered the streets for Central feeling sorry for myself for a long time. Then I saw it in a store window. Introduction to Alchemy. I ended up spending my train fare home on that book, but it was more than an equivalent exchange.

. . .

I didn't have enough money left after buying the book for both food and shelter, so I spent the night on the street. It was just as well. A bed would have been wasted on me as I spend the whole night reading by the light of the street lamps.

One of the concepts in the book was difficult, not because it was complicated. I was prepared for that. It was difficult because it contradicted my experience with alchemy. Equivalent Exchange. Father Cornello's miracles never followed that law. It didn't fit, but then again, it didn't matter.

When the sun came up, I went down to the river to attempt my first transmutation. The silt on the bank made the perfect medium in which to draw my circle, and the mud from the bed was the perfect material to transmute.

I carefully drew the circle, then gingerly placed my hands on the array. Nothing happened. I felt betrayed. The theory had seemed to make sense. The book's array had looked flawless.

It was at that point that I noticed that some water had formed a trickle from the clump of mud I put in the middle, and had washed away part of the array. Embarrassed, and hoping no one had noticed my earlier outrage, I repaired my damaged array, and placed my hands on it more quickly this time, so as to hopefully avoid my earlier complication.

The array began to glow with an incredible golden light. The mud in the center began to move on its own. As I stared at it in intense wonder, a cloud of smoke exploded in the center of the array, blinding me momentarily, and causing me to fall backward.

Coughing and wiping soot from my face, I realized what had gone wrong. The book's array had called for dry ingredients. The mud had all the materials for the transmutation, but it also had water, which had to go somewhere.

When the cloud of steam and dirt cleared, I saw the results of my transmutation. A fired and glazed ceramic cup. It worked.

I was struck by how people walking by didn't even seem to miss a step. Back in Liore, they would have said I'd performed a miracle.

I used that array several more times almost as if to prove the first time wasn't a fluke to myself. By midday, I had dozens if such cups strewn across the river bank, and I was covered head to toe in the dirty water that condensed from the minor explosions after each transmutation.

Then, my stomach growled.

I was out of money, and the thought of begging for charity was rather unappealing. As I was contemplating what a fool I'd been for not preparing for this journey more completely, a solution occurred to me that seemed too simple to be a real option.

I gathered up the cups I had transmuted, and spent an hour or so washing the dirt off them in the river. That done, I spent the remainder of the day finding a shop that would buy them.

The sale earned me enough for a room at a hotel, and a couple of hot meals. Once I had a full stomach and was lying in bed, the implications of that sale hit me.

In spite of the access to education people here in Central had, most chose not to avail themselves of it. I could manufacture things using alchemy, and even though everyone here could do the same with a little training, they'd pay me to do it for them.

I now had a plan for funding my education, and I wasted no time putting it into practice.

. . .

For the first few weeks, I was living in hotels, dividing my time between learning more about alchemy and finding buyers for the products of my experiments. As my alchemy improved, the increasingly complex products I was able to make eventually earned me enough not only to pay rent on a small apartment and keep food in the cupboard, but left me enough to buy more alchemy books.

Such was my way of life for more than a year, and I might have happily lived like that for the rest of my life if word hadn't reached me about trouble back in Liore.

. . .

I spent more time preparing for my trip back to Liore than I had when I left for Central. I added transmutation circles to the soles of my shoes to regulate traction, as well as the integrity of the surface I was walking on. I knew that if I was going into a war zone, the ability to move quickly would be vital, and the soft sand in Liore would make that difficult unless I had an edge.

What I just couldn't wrap my mind around was, why had the people of Liore rebelled against the state? The Fullmetal Alchemist had demonstrated Cornello as a fraud, but apparently an acquaintance of mine had overheard some Colonel or another talking about a miracle working priest back home who really incited a revolution. How had the folks back home fallen for the same trick twice?

A diagram etched into my canteen would serve as a water purification system, allowing me to safely drink from any water source I found. After all, in desert warfare, thirst can be just as much a threat as bullets, and the military hasn't exactly proven itself above contaminating water supplies when it has suited their aims.

Perhaps the same betrayed feeling which led me to study alchemy made the others even more desperate for something to believe in. So desperate that they were ready to abandon the lesson about false prophets we learned from Cornello.

My provisions gathered and preparations made, I set out from my apartment in Central toward Liore. The first part of my journey was by train, and was relatively uneventful, but when I reached the end of the line, I found that it would be impossible to travel to Liore by car. Not only was no one willing to drive me to a war zone, but the military was supposedly detaining any civilian vehicles approaching the city. I would have to go on foot.

. . .

Thanks to my preparations, my journey progressed quickly. In under a day, I crested a dune and saw Liore. There was obvious damage from the fighting, but somehow, there was a kind of symmetry to it that suggested a pattern to the chaos. Just outside the city was the military's encampment. There were armored vehicles massing in the camp. The military was preparing to pacify the city with violence. I had to get inside.

I climbed down the dune, then began circling around the military's encampment. I'd made it about a quarter of the way around when a patrol noticed me.

"Hold it right there!" The lone soldier leveled his rifle at me.

I stopped in my tracks, painfully aware that my life was the twitch of a finger from ending, then and there.

"Hands where I can see them!"

I had to do something. His voice had a nervous crack to it. The longer that rifle was pointed at me, the more likely it would go off, but what could I do? Without a plan, I had no choice but to comply and hope this soldier had the restraint to keep his weapon from firing.

I raised my hands, then lifted my left foot meaning to turn toward the soldier. As I did so, I remembered the transmission circles on my shoes. It was my only chance.

When I finished my turn, I stomped my left food down, activating the array. The sudden movement startled the soldier, but he couldn't react in time. Arcs of violet light were visible emanating from my left foot. The ground under his feet lost its integrity, and collapsed in on itself, taking my would be killer down with it. The pit I transmuted was deep. It would take him some time to climb out of it. Meanwhile, I would have reached the city.

. . .

There wasn't much fighting going on inside the city. It was eerily calm, perhaps foreshadowing the proverbial storm. I took advantage of that time by updating the geometry of my shoes' arrays to allow for a greater variety of transmutations. I had just completed the new arrays when I saw the procession approaching.

Rose, the girl who had taken into herself the best aspects of what Cornello had preached. She formed the heart of a procession of white robed figures. Standing behind and beside her was a man who's scarred face spoke of an intense rage scarcely held in check. Rose was carrying a baby.

The crowd around me was treating her like some kind of religious icon, looking to her for leadership and inspiration. If I was going to be of any help with the city's defense, I would need to find out what the plan was. After Rose's procession passed by, I started following them, hoping for a moment away from the crowds where we could talk.

I wasn't prepared for what I would learn when I got that chance.

. . .

As it turned out, the scarred man was leading the defense. The plan was simple, but brutal beyond belief. The symmetry I had noticed in the damaged city was part of a transmutation array. The entire city was made into that array.

The scarred man explained, "You and the others will lure the military's forces into the heart of the city. Rose and Lyra here will evacuate the civilians through a series of tunnels beneath the church. When all of their forces are inside the city, I'll activate the array. The soldiers will die and be forged into the Philosopher's Stone."

While I wasn't sure about this man's claims about the Philosopher's Stone, there was no doubt in my mind that whatever the array did, it would be enough to kill everyone in the city. Alchemy as a weapon of mass destruction.

. . .

There was little time to weight the moral questions involved, however. Word reached us that we were already under attack. The man called Scar and I rushed to bolster the defense.

Partially because of the arrays on my shoes aiding my stability, and partially because I was more familiar with the city's layout, I reached the fighting well before Scar.

What was attacking was not men but monsters, strange animals like something out of a nightmare. With the tooth and the claw, they were tearing people apart. I stomped my foot on the ground and activated my array. Arcs of violet light accompanied the eruption of a stone spike from the earth beneath one of the creatures, impaling it before it could reach the soldier it was pouncing on.

My transmutation caught the attention of the creatures, who formed up like a pack of wolves. I stared them down, giving the rest of the soldiers a chance to escape.

"Now you'll die."

The voice came from one of the creatures, and it was only then that I realized what I was facing. They could only be chimeras. Created by alchemists who combined different animals together, these chimeras spoke of something even more sinister. For it to speak the human language meant that one of the "components" of each of these chimeras was human.

My eyes widened in shock at the realization, and without meaning to, I glanced at the one I had killed when I arrived. Blood was still dripping down the spike, and it hit me what I had done.

Before I had fully recovered, the chimeras took their chance to strike. They came at me so quickly I fell over backward trying to avoid them. That might have saved my life, since the lead chimera leapt right through the space where my torso had been. I wasn't so lucky with the next one, who latched its jaws around my right ankle. I heard a sickening snap, and saw my foot go limp as the chimera tore it from my body. Barely aware of what I was doing, I kicked the chimera in the head with my remaining foot. The array activated with a storm of purple light, and when the red mist that resulted cleared, the chimera's head was no where to be seen.

At that point, my death seemed inevitable. Surrounded by a dozen chimeras, and bleeding badly from the stump where my right foot had been, it would take a miracle to get out of this alive.

Then, he appeared, the man with the cross shaped scar on his face. He threw open his robe, revealing, for the first time since I'd met him, his right arm. The unusual transmutation circle tattooed around his arm activated, glowing red, as he caught the first chimera leaping at him. Closing his fingers around the chimera's head, the creature's brain exploded out the back, in a smear of blood and gore.

He struck another with his open palm, and the alchemy turned its flesh into so much ground meat. Seeing the strength and skill of their opponent, the remaining chimeras fled, with Scar giving chase.

I may have been saved from the chimeras, but I was losing blood quickly. An idea occurred to me, and I began to crawl to the spot where my foot had fallen, leaving a trail in the blood soaked ground. I grabbed my foot, and tried to sit up. The blood loss must have been worse than I had thought, because I nearly fainted.

I dipped my finger in a pool of blood. I wasn't sure whether it was my blood, the blood of one of the soldiers, or blood from one of the dead chimeras. It didn't really matter. I drew an array with the blood, placing my still bleeding leg in the center and holding my amputated foot up to the stump.

I activated the array, and it began to glow with a golden light. I could see the transmutation beginning to take effect. Then, a horrible pain, worse than when the foot had been torn off, shot through my body. That was how I learned that alchemists couldn't transmute their own bodies.

Giving up on the foot as a lost cause, I adjusted the array. I used it to transmute the fabric of my pant leg into bandages and a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Once I saw the transmutation complete, my will gave out. The combined strains of losing so much blood, and continuing to spend my energy to perform alchemy sapped my strength. Now that I was out of immediate danger, I collapsed and lost consciousness.

. . .

I awoke to the sound of gun fire. Men wearing the blue uniforms of the state military were standing almost on top of where I lay, firing down an alley. I must've looked like I was dead for them to have ignored me like that. I had dipped my finger in another pool of blood, when the man they were shooting at charged into sight.

It was Scar. Even though their gunfire wasn't very accurate, he was still shot twice in the chest. Whatever pain it may have caused him, he kept on charging as though nothing had happened. The moment he cleared the alley, he sidestepped, never taking his red eyes off the soldiers.

My transmutation circle was half done by this point, but it turned out to be completely unnecessary. As Scar sidestepped, a dark hared woman was revealed behind him. The moment scar was out of the line of fire, the strange woman pointed her finger tips at the two soldiers. In the blink of an eye, the woman's fingers extended a good ten feet, impaling the soldiers through the heart and brain with surreal accuracy.

Then, as quickly as it had happened, the woman's hand returned to normal, and the soldiers fell to the ground. Scar hadn't missed a step, and continued to run down another side street, with the dark hared woman following close behind.

Left behind again, I became acutely aware that in spite of the fact that the state military was clearly inside the city, I couldn't hear any gunfire except the occasional shot from the direction Scar had run off in. Time was running out. With our people no where to be found, the military in the city, and Scar injured, he might activate the array that would kill everyone in the city at any time.

I grabbed the rifles from the two dead soldiers, hurriedly traced an array, and transmuted the guns into a pair of crutches. Then, I crawled to a nearby drainage pipe, and dragged myself upright.

I was light headed and dizzy, and with only one foot, I wasn't sure if I could make it out of town. Even so, I had to try. However bad my odds of survival were trying to get out, my odds if I didn't try were worse.

I'd traveled less than a block when I saw a group of three soldiers. They noticed me, and signaled that I should stop. I didn't have time to talk to them, or to answer whatever slew of unimportant questions they were bound to demand answered before letting me go. I could feel the time ticking away, and had no idea how long it would be before the alchemic annihilation of the city of Liore.

When I put my foot down at the end of my step, I used the array on my one remaining shoe to transmute the ground under their feet. Unlike earlier, when I just destroyed the integrity of the sand creating a pit, this time I created a square stone room with smooth walls covered in glass to prevent their escape, and a bridge over it, so I wouldn't have to walk around it and waste valuable time.

I'd made it halfway across the bridge when, all around me, a brilliant red light was erupting from every part of the city. A wall of alchemic light surged into view like a tidal wave, deconstructing everything in its path. Buildings turned to dust, revealing the total devastation emanating from the center of Liore. Inside the light, I could see soldiers being broken down, and emitting sparks of red light fueling the chain reaction of the transmutation.

The light was moving too fast for me to outrun, even if I hadn't lost my right foot. Seeing my only slim chance, I tucked my body into a ball and dropped into the room below. I knew stone walls weren't going to stop that wave, but I still had one idea left.

I hit the bottom and nearly had the wind knocked out of me by the impact. The soldiers I'd dropped down here were in a state of panic, hearing the screams of their dying comrades and seeing the red glow through the open top of this underground box. They offered no resistance as I scrambled on my hands and knees over to the wall nearest the wave I'd seen coming.

Rolling onto my back, I planted my foot against the wall, and began my transmutation. The entire room glowed violet, and a ceiling slid out of the top of the nearest wall, entombing me with the three soldiers. I kept the alchemic energy circulating through the room until the wave reached us. As the array around Liore worked to deconstruct the walls I had built, I used the array on my shoe to reconstruct those walls. If I could keep the transmutation up until the array around Liore ran out of energy, we might survive this.

The soldiers sealed in with me were even more agitated. Now that they were completely sealed in, and with the walls, floor, and ceiling all glowing purple, the very barriers, both physical and alchemic, that were protecting us from the storm of alchemic energy outside were causing these men to panic.

"What the hell are you doing!" demanded one of the soldiers.

"Saving your lives, you morons!" I yelled over my shoulder, my voice fighting the roar of the opposing transmutations. "Now, shut up and let me concentrate, or we'll end up like everyone else in the city!"

That reduced their panicked yells to frightened whimpers as they backed away from me and huddled together. Whatever sense of security I'd managed to give them was lost on me. I could feel my body's energy starting to give out against the effort of maintaining this continuous transmutation. If I couldn't hold the transmutation, and my odds of success were looking worse by the minute, we were all going to die.

Reaching inside myself, I discovered reserves of strength and will I didn't realize I possessed. Tapping those reserves, I managed to hold out another few seconds. Then I reached my limit.

I could feel my strength waning again, and this time there was nothing I could do about it. My eyes were rolling back, and I was on the verge of passing out. I knew I'd failed. These men and I were going to die.

Then, my reconstruction of our sanctuary and tomb completed unopposed. The transmutation of Liore was over, and we were alive. I had just enough time to smile at that knowledge before I lost consciousness, and the tomb was plunged into absolute pitch darkness.

. . .

I don't know how long I was out. Considering that the room was completely sealed, it couldn't have been too long, or we would have run out of air.

"D' ya think he's dead?"

"If he is, so are we, unless one of you two happen to have a pickaxe we can use to dig ourselves out of here."

"Hold on. I'll check."

The next thing I knew, someone had planted their foot in my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. Hardly thinking about anything but how much that hurt, I grabbed his foot and rolled on to my side. He hit the ground hard, and I had a chance to catch my breath.

"What was that for?" I demanded as soon as I could breathe again.

"You're alive"

"Yeah, looks like I am. Would it be too much to ask that you guys not move around while we're stuck in the dark? Your buddy here tripped over me."

"Ugh. Sorry about that. I was just trying to see if you were okay."

"Just no one move, okay?" I kicked my right leg toward the wall, and screamed in pain as the bloody stump where the chimera had bit off my foot hit the wall hard.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll live. I just forgot about my foot and did something stupid. I'll get us out of here."

More gently, I placed my left foot against the wall, and activated the array. The room was briefly lit by the violet glow of the transmutation, and when it was gone, sunlight was streaming through the staircase out of this bunker I had created.

I don't think they'd gotten a good look at me up until this point. They all looked down at me laying there. The gratitude I saw in their eyes became laced with pity as they noticed my injury for the first time.

Two of them helped me upright while the third cautiously climbed the stairs to have a look around. I already knew what he'd see. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the faces of the soldiers I'd seen broken down before my eyes, and I had no interest in surveying the aftermath of the devastation.

When we reached the surface, they were all staring. There was nothing left. Liore had been wiped off the map. Where there had once been a small city, my home, there was nothing but a newly formed dune of sand.

While they stood, staring with disbelief at the desert, I got to my hands and knees and drew an array in the sand. The soldiers didn't even notice the light from my circle as I transmuted a new pair of crutches, and started to walk away.

One of them snapped out of his morbid fixation before I had gone too far.

"Wait. We don't even know your name."

"Marcus," I called back over my shoulder. "Marcus Oren."

. . .

You would think it would be difficult traveling through the desert without any provisions, and on one foot no less. As it turned out, it just gave me some time to think. My alchemy provided me with shelter from the sun, and came in handy for catching and cooking the occasional snake, lizard, or mouse I ran across.

Up until now, I'd always believed I'd go back to Liore one day, after I finished by studies. Now, not only was there no Liore to return to, but being honest with myself, I realized that I'd never fit in there in the first place. I'd have probably stayed in Central if it hadn't been for the rebellion.

I'd lost my way. Not literally, as I'd never known where I was headed through this desert. I'd lost my way in life. As I wandered, I came to two conclusions. One, that I'd never been happier than when I was studying alchemy in Central, and two, that I'd never felt more alive than when I put that knowledge to use in Liore.

There was also the small matter of my missing foot. I'd rather not spend the rest of my life on crutches, but my attempts to reattach it using alchemy had bet with miserable failure. I could only hope that once I made it back to civilization, and could take some time to study the question, I'd be able to find a solution.

After all, I'd seen alchemists do things the books said were impossible before. The books say you can't bring dead things back to life, but one of the first "miracles" I'd witnessed from Cornello was he resurrection of a dead bird. The books say that a transmutation circle is needed to perform alchemy, but the Fullmetal Alchemist hadn't needed one. There was knowledge out there that went well beyond the alchemy books I'd read in Central, and if I was going to become whole again, I'd need to learn it.

. . .

Author's comments:  
I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter to the story of Marcus Oren, soon to be known as the Iron Sole Alchemist.


	2. A Part of Something Greater.

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 2) A part of something greater.  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

After several days of wandering, the desert gave way to grassy plains, and eventually I spotted a town on the water. There were train tracks through the city. If I couldn't find what I needed here, at least I'd be able to take a train to somewhere I could.

I'd been keeping my bandages clean using alchemy, but I knew I was going to need a doctor for my right leg. Limping into town, I stopped the first person I encountered, an attractive woman with long, red hair.

"Excuse me, Miss," I said. "Can you point me in the direction of the hospital?"

"I'm sorry, young man," she replied, "but the Aquroya hospital was torn down over a year ago."

"That's not good. I managed to stop the bleeding and keep it clean, but I'm not a doctor. It's been days since I lost my foot, and a dull ache's been spreading up the leg slowly ever since."

"My, that does sound serious I'll tell you what. I used to work at the hospital before they tore it down. Most of the doctors left soon after, but I know a surgeon who's still practicing out of his home."

The woman, who called herself Ann, led the way to a small house next to a canal.

"Head inside," she said. "This is the best doctor in Aquroya, Dr. DeRocha." Then she left.

. . .

I knocked on the door, and was almost immediately greeted by a middle aged man in a white coat. Before I could say a word, he saw my leg, rushed me inside, and had me lying on a table.

I began to explain what had happened, that my foot had been bitten off a few days ago, and how the pain was getting worse. Meanwhile, the doctor grabbed a pair of scissors and shredded my pant leg, leaving my wounded leg bare.

I'd been cleaning the bandages with alchemy, and hadn't actually removed them since I was first injured. The entire leg, up to the mid thigh was discolored. A red line ran up the leg, while the flesh nearer the wound was either bruised black or sickly yellow.

"This looks bad. The wound has been infected, and the infection is spreading. If I don't amputate, the blood poisoning will reach your heart, and you'll die."

"You're the doctor, not me. Do what you have to do." The thought of losing my entire leg wasn't exactly appealing, but it was a hell of a lot more appealing than dying. Part of me wanted to seek a second opinion, but what the doctor said made sense, and the longer I delayed, the worse off I'd be.

The doctor applied his scissors on my shirt this time. I was about to ask what he was doing, when he produced a needle.

"Don't worry," he said. "This is just a general anesthetic. It'll be better for both of us if you sleep through the operation. We can't have you squirming around while I'm trying to make precise incisions, can we?"

"Like I said, do whatever you think is best."

The doctor slid his syringe into my shoulder, and almost immediately, I felt a numbing sensation spread from the injection site. In no time, I'd lost all feeling in my right arm, and the feeling of numbness was spreading through my chest. A momentary fear of suffocation subsided as my torso succumbed to the doctor's drug, and my breathing regularized. It was incredibly relaxing, and as the numbness crept up my neck and over my head, my eyes closed and I was drifting near sleep. I experienced the remaining loss of sensation in this state of near stupor.

. . .

When the doctor's powerful drugs began to wear off, I felt a dull ache at the point of my mid thigh and the numbness below the pain refused to subside. Coming more fully awake, I looked down at my right leg. There was scarcely anything left of it.

I was moving to sit up, when the doctor came in and laid me back down.

"You're going to need to stay in bed for a couple more days yet. I'll need to keep you under observation and keep an eye out for infection until the wound closes over."

"I guess I was pretty luck I ran into that red headed nurse first thing, huh?"

"Red headed nurse?"

"Yes, she said her name was Ann. She used to work at the hospital before it got torn down."

"I've never even heard of a red haired nurse at the old hospital, and the name Ann doesn't ring any bells either."

"Strange, she seemed to know you."

. . .

I stayed with the doctor for two weeks before he declared me well enough to leave.

"I'm afraid there aren't any automail mechanics here in Aquroya. Since you're going to be on crutches for a while anyway, you'll probably want to make a trip to Rush Valley."

"What's in Rush Valley?"

"Rush Valley's the home of the best automail engineers in the country. They call it the automail capitol of the world. If you want to be able to walk again, Rush Valley is the place you'll want to go."

I asked the doctor about my clothes, but since he'd shredded them, the only thing he hadn't thrown out was my left shoe.

He gave me some old clothes that were much too big for me, and I payed him for his services and the old clothes. I thanked Dr. DeRocha again before setting out for the train station.

As I was heading through town, I happened to catch a glimpse of my reflection in a window. My brown hair was a matted mess, dropping over my brown eyes, partially covering my left eye. The doctor's clothes hung off my slender frame, completing the sloppy look.

I shook my head, and lifted myself off the ground by my crutches. As my left foot came down, I activated the array on my shoe. I watched the transmutation in the window.

My entire body began to glow purple. Arcs of violet light passed over my left shoe, causing the dust and mud it had accumulated to flake off, leaving a well shined, thick soled, black boot. the energy arcs moved up the tan pant leg. As it contracted to a perfect form fit, the light tan color darkened to a deep brown, and the felt material was transmuted to a denim like consistency. The over-sized flannel shirt the doctor had provided was split by the transmutation into a white, sleeveless undershirt and a brown pancho with a geometric pattern around the collar. The glow wrapped around my body began to fade as the final arcs of the transmutation reached my head. A couple of purples sparks shot through my hair, spiking it up.

The transmutation had just completed, and I was smiling at the change in my appearance when a metal cuff closed around my right wrist.

. . .

I was nervous as I was dragged to police headquarters. I'd taken part in an armed insurrection against the state military, and been aware ahead of time of Scar's plan to annihilate the city. I was contemplating my odds of escaping on one leg when the first question came, taking me completely off guard.

"Where's Psiren?"

"Who?"

"Don't play dumb with me. I know you're working with her."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"One year ago, a master thief escaped police custody. Her real name was Clare, but she isn't stupid enough to keep using that name. The only lead we have left is that she commits her crimes using alchemy."

"So? What, you drag every alchemist in off the street and give them the fifth degree?"

"I'll ask the questions here. Now what do you know about Psiren?"

"I'd never heard of her until you dragged me in here."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth."

"Let's go over this again from the beginning."

The interrogation went on for hours, and by the end of it, I was no closer to convincing the detective of my innocence. He grudgingly released me from police custody only because he didn't have enough evidence to hold me. As I was leaving, the detective said one last thing.

"Don't leave town."

. . .

My return to civilization wasn't exactly going according to plan. Thanks to this detective making me a suspect, I was stuck in this city indefinitely. Not to mention that without an automail mechanic in town, my entire stay was going to be spent on crutches.

I was upset, but I decided that if I was stuck here, I might as well see if I could use the time to start researching a more permanent solution for my leg. After asking around town, I made my way to the Aquroya library.

The building that housed Aquroya's library was an architectural marvel. I approached it in a skiff, since the front door was canal side. There was a large central dome visible from the outside, and marble columns supported an overhanging roof.

Once I actually entered the building, the view was breath taking. The ceiling dome was painted with a masterful depiction of a hand reaching out for a blood red stone against a background of golden light. Shelves of books covered the walls, and spiral staircases led up to higher levels.

"Beautiful isn't it?"

I must've been staring, because I hadn't noticed the dark haired woman approach.

"I'm sorry for staring. I was actually looking for books on alchemy. Can you help me?"

"The Aquroya library has a rather extensive collection of books on alchemy, but I'm afraid I don't know my way around that section very well. There is another librarian though. She's rebinding books in the back. Maybe she can help you find what you're looking for."

"Thanks, I'll go ask her."

With that, I headed over to the door the woman indicated. It was slightly ajar, and as I approached, a faint, pink light streamed through the partly open door. I peeked inside, and saw a red haired woman with her shirt partly unbuttoned. She was holding a water damaged book, and as I watched, the pink light I had seen earlier enveloped the book and it was transmuted into pristine condition.

"So, you're an alchemist too," I said a I opened the door. The woman jumped a little as she turned to face me. I recognized Ann. Tattooed on her chest was a distinct transmutation circle.

"Oh, it's you."

"I'm glad I ran into you. I was starting to worry I wouldn't get the chance to thank you. If you hadn't introduced me to that doctor, I'd probably be dead by now."

"It looks like you lost the whole leg."

"Yeah, but it's better than the alternative. My only real complaint is that obsessed detective."

"Detective?" Ann seemed nervous.

"He's looking for some alchemy using thief, and when he saw me transmute my clothes, he dragged me in for questioning. You're an alchemist, you must've run into him too."

"I don't think so."

"Don't worry, then. Your secret's safe with me. Thanks to that detective, I'm stuck in Aquroya until further notice."

"I'm sorry."

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about. It's not as though any of this is your fault, but there is something you might be able to help me with."

"What's that?"

"I'm looking for books about alchemy on living structures. Creating chimeras, medical uses of alchemy, human transmutation-"

"Human transmutation! Why would I know anything about that?"

"I was hoping there was something related in the library here. The other librarian said you could help."

Ann breathed a sigh of relief, buttoned up her blouse, and began leading me through the library.

. . .

As it turned out, the library's collection of alchemy texts was indeed extensive. The problem was that the majority of the texts were either basic alchemy, or junk and speculation written by people who had no idea how alchemy worked.

Once Ann helped me to sort through all that, there were only three books which might have been relevant. one was an introductory text on the creation of chimeras. Another was a theoretical paper on the properties and use of the philosopher's stone.

The third was a collection of letters in a loosely bound folio. When Ann reacted with shock at its contents, I suspected that this book probably shouldn't be in the library at all, and that it's presence here was likely an oversight. The letters were discussing human transmutation, using alchemy to raise the dead.

"Is this what you were looking for?" she asked in a horrified whisper.

I was too absorbed by the contents of the folio to notice her tone. "Sort of," I replied. "I mean I'm not trying to raise the dead or anything, but the anatomical structures and body compositions they talk about might be useful."

"So if you aren't trying to raise the dead, what are you researching?"

"I'm trying to find out if there's a way to use alchemy to replace or regenerate my right leg."

"I think I understand. You do realize, though, that you're talking about human transmutation, a practice more strictly prohibited than using alchemy to make gold. Now, I understand that sometimes slavish adherence to the law isn't the right thing to do, but you really should be more discrete about this sort of research. Not everyone's going to understand that like I do."

Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that anyone would object to my research. I suppose it must've been common knowledge that human transmutation was taboo, so much so that none of the alchemy texts I'd read in Central had even bothered to mention the taboo. Still, I didn't grow up with that taboo, and I had no intention of being bound by it.

Ann was right though. If it was illegal to do this kind of research, I'd have to be more discrete.

"Thanks."

. . .

By the time we'd found those books, it was pretty late, so I said goodbye to Ann and left to find a hotel room, deciding to get a fresh start in the morning. I found a hotel near the library and approached the front desk.

"Hello, sir," I began, "how much is it to rent a room for the night?"

"50,000."

"What!"

"Aquroya's a tourist town. A lot of folks come here to see the sights, and they all need room and board. Supply and demand, you understand."

I had some money. I'd brought quite a bit with me when I left Central so I could pay for transportation and lodging on my trip to Liore. I could afford the room, but only for a couple of days. I had little choice but to pay for that night, but the next day I'd have to come up with something.

. . .

When I woke the following morning, I decided that my best option would be to spend the day touring the city. I figured I'd check out the shops to see if there was something in demand in this city that I could make with my alchemy.

The streets were more crowded than the day before. As I made my way through the crowds, I heard people talking.

"It says here Psiren's announced her next heist."

"Man, I can't believe I'm actually going to get to see her."

"I just can't wait for the cops to fall flat on their faces."

"Psiren rules!"

I couldn't believe it. All these people were treating this thief like some sort of celebrity. I picked a discarded newspaper off the ground. There was a picture on the front page of a woman in an absolutely ridiculous costume next to a picture of a building which the caption identified as a museum. Between the pictures of Psiren and the museum was a shot of a jeweled necklace, presumably her target.

The hotel owner had told me that Aquroya was a tourist town, and judging from the groupies, Psiren was the main attraction.

A plan formed in my mind, I found a trash can. Digging through it, I extracted aluminum cans, glass bottles, and discarded paper. Carrying the trash I limped my way to a clear place in the town square. I placed the papers in a pile on the ground, and on my hands and knee, I traced a transmutation circle around the pile of papers.

A few people stopped to stare at me as I traced the array, and they got a show when I activated it. Golden light streamed from the chalk outline and enveloped the papers. A whirlwind of alchemic light drew the papers off the ground, smoothed out their folds and wrinkles, and drew them toward a point in the center. One by one, the papers found their place and were transmuted into wood.

The transmutation had drawn many eyes, and when the light faded they saw a small wooden stall. On a sign drawn by alchemy out of the ink of discarded newspapers there were the words, "PSIREN SOUVENIRS".

"Well, I'm impressed," said one of the onlookers. "What exactly are you selling?"

"I'll show you." With that I quickly traced an array on the table, and placed some of the broken bottles and crumpled cans in the center.

"You're selling garbage?" he said skeptically.

"No," I said as I activated the array. The bottles and cans became fluid for an instant, twisting together. When the light faded, the final product was revealed to my wide eyed customer. "Replicas of Psiren's next target."

. . .

The tourists were lose with their money, and by the end of the day I'd made enough to handle my expenses for a week. My first impulse was to spend that week researching at the library, but then I realized that if and when I got out of the city and made it to Rush Valley, I'd need to have some money saved up to pay for my automail.

Since I was in no immediate danger of being allowed to leave town, I settled on dividing my time more or less evenly between earning money toward the prosthetic and researching human transmutation at the library.

I'd been working for three days, selling souvenirs until noon and researching alchemy until past dark, when a familiar face approached my stand. It was the detective who was after Psiren.

"Well, well," began the detective, "isn't this interesting. You claim you aren't working with Psiren, but the day her robbery is supposed to take place, I find you making counterfeit necklaces. Very interesting indeed.

"I'll bet you're planning on providing Psiren with these fakes so she can switch it for the real thing tonight. I've got you now, admit you're working with her!"

"What are you talking about?" I yelled back at him. "I wouldn't even be in this city at all if you hadn't dragged me into your interrogation rooms and then put travel restrictions on me so I couldn't leave town!"

"Don't give me that!" he exclaimed as he slapped his hands on my counter. "I ought to haul you in."

"If you had enough evidence to do that, we'd be having this conversation at the police station instead of here in the streets.

"Look," I said, taking a deep breath, "it seems to me you're not going to let me leave town until you catch this thief, so why don't you let me help you?"

"You? Help? You're a suspect. Besides, what could you possibly do to help?"

"Well, for starters, have you considered Psiren's motive?"

"Motive? Isn't it obvious? She's in it for the money."

"And that's why you need my help, detective. You've managed to identify the one motive that can't possibly be right."

"What do you mean?"

"By all indications, Psiren's a talented alchemist. We also know she doesn't have a problem breaking the law. If money were all she was after, she could've just transmuted gold."

"You've got a point."

"Let me help you put this thief away, so I can move on with my life."

. . .

That afternoon, when I met up with Ann at the library, I told her I wouldn't be staying late that night.

"Looking to get a good spot to watch Psiren's museum robbery from?" she asked, half teasing.

"Something like that-" I started.

"Don't worry about it," she replied forestalling my explanation. "I never miss a Psiren appearance. Maybe I'll see you there."

She winked as she said that last sentence, and went to gather the books for this afternoon's research.

The transmutation of living creatures and still having them be living afterward is one of the most complicated, delicate, and challenging kinds of alchemy there is. Even though the chimera book was an introductory text, I'd been struggling for days to master even the most basic concepts.

More than the complicated nature of the material I was studying, I was slowed by ethical concerns. In alchemy, as with any skill, there is a learning process. A certain about of initial failure is to be expected. Few people can get something perfect the first time they try. With alchemy on inert matter, those initial failures and imperfections aren't so important. When dealing with living creatures, that flawed technique could lead to the painful death of my subject. I wanted to be as prepared as possible with theoretical knowledge and to learn as much as possible from the mistakes of the alchemists who came before me, recorded in books like these, before trying my hand with real animals.

. . .

I left the library early to meet up with the detective at the museum. He was set up with half a dozen police and museum guards. The necklace was under a glass display case, and the room itself was securely locked. The large, glass, fifth story window offered a terrific view of the crowd outside the iron gate leading to the museum entrance.

"All right, alchemist," began the detective when I arrived, "I'm going to give you a chance. Psiren's robbery is planned for tonight. The only ways in or out are the door and window there. I've got three men covering each.

"The way I figure it, if you are working with her, even if she gets away tonight because of you, you won't be able to run on that leg."  
I had a seat on the window sill, and stared intently at the prize we were guarding. As I watched the display case, I noticed a dot of pink light moving in a rapid circle along the floor around the display case.

"Detective!" I shouted just as the floor beneath the display case detached itself from the rest of the floor, leaving a circular hole behind as the display case dropped on to the floor below. There was the sound of glass shattering as the case fell, and a cloud of dust and debris obscured the view through the hole to the floor below.

The police were still processing what had just happened when the sound of breaking glass could again be heard. I glanced out the window and saw a woman in a black mask and costume jumping through the window just below us. Holding a rope secured inside the room she just left, she began repelling to the ground below.

I only had a few seconds to think of a way to stop her before she reached the ground and fled. An idea half formed in my mind, I threw myself out the window. Psiren started as I fell past her. Shifting my weight to keep my foot under me I activated the array on my shoe just as it touched the ground.

A purple flash of light accompanied the transmutation of the ground beneath me. Due to my alchemy, the ground below me compressed rapidly, cushioning my fall. The top of my head was a good foot below ground level by the time my fall had been completely broken. Now safely on the ground ahead of Psiren, I again activated the array on my shoe.

A violet glow poured from the hole I was in as I transmuted the ground back to its original form. As I rose up, Psiren repelled down, reaching the ground just as my transmutation completed.

Psiren turned from the wall to face me, and seemed surprised for a moment when our eyes locked. Taking advantage of the opening, I raised myself onto my toe then firmly planted my heel. Arcs of purple energy surrounded Psiren as I began transmuting a semicircular wall to trap her between it and the museum wall.

My opening didn't last long, and Psiren's momentary surprise was over before my wall had risen to waist height. Theatrically displaying a deck of playing cards in her left hand, she squeezed the deck, and a dozen cards sprung at me. As each card left the deck, it was wrapped in pink alchemic light.

The cards hit me in the chest with the force of a hammer, knocking me on my back. When my foot broke contact with the ground, my transmutation was disrupted. As I moved to raise my knee and get my sole back on the ground, Psiren hopped my partially completed wall. While still in the air, pink streaks of light seemed to shoot from her general direction like bullets. Before I was fully aware of what had happened, I was held immobile by the transmuted playing cards which had pinned my clothes securely to the ground.

As I lay there, helpless, Psiren knelled beside me.

"Better luck next time," she said in a tone that could be either mocking or flirting. With that, she bent down and kissed me on the cheek before running off into the night.

. . .

Despite the lengths I'd gone to and the risks I'd taken, I'd gotten nowhere in earning the detective's trust. Psiren had escaped and that was all that mattered to him. The detective's continued suspicion was nothing compared to my wounded pride.

The only thing that got me through the following day was the fact that I was finally ready to attempt the creation of my first chimera. I didn't set up my souvenir stand that day, instead spending my morning tracking down the animals I would be experimenting on.

I'd decided to start small, with insects and other animals who's nervous systems were too simple for them to feel pain. Once I'd refined my technique, I could try it with more complex creatures.

I arrived at the library that afternoon carrying a heavy satchel. I didn't see Ann at first, so I made my way to the private study room we'd been working out of. I sat the bag down next to the table and plopped into my chair. Leaning my crutches against the table, I reached into the satchel.

Two large jars containing fish were placed at the far left side of the table, and the jar of beetles was placed next to them. Next I took out a jar filled with nothing but water, which would serve as my experimental chamber.

I'd just finished setting up my workspace when Ann arrived. "So," she began coyly, "did you have a good spot to catch the action from last night?"

"I guess you could say that," I said evasively, not wanting to talk about my failed apprehension attempt. I decided to change the subject. "Today's the day," I said, gesturing to the jars of creatures in front of us.

Ann blanched visibly imagining the end results of today's experiments. I couldn't blame her. Up until this point, all that'd been happening was reading books and memorizing formulas. Today was the day things get real.

I took a sheet of paper from a nearby stack and carefully constructed an array. Then I transferred one of the fish from my stock jars into the empty one, and placed the jar in the center of the transmutation circle. Using a set of tongs, I dropped one of the beetles into the water with the fish. All the components prepared, I placed my hands on the array, activating it.

A golden glow rose up from my transmutation circle and enveloped the jar. The two creatures were drawn together by the energy of the transmutation. As they touched, both the fish and the beetle began to be broken down starting at the point of contact. Scales and exoskeleton were peeled back by the alchemy exposing muscle, bone, and internal organs. These tissues twisted around one another, joining into a single structure. Finally, when the internal structures were mostly assembled, the scales and chitinous shell merged together, flowing over the body of this new creature like a liquid.

When the transmutation completed, the end result, a hard shelled, fish shaped crustacean was supporting itself on six insect-like legs and a pair of chitin covered fins at the bottom of the jar.

"It worked," I said, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice.

"That was disgusting," said Ann who was still staring at the creature in the jar.

"It was a beginning process, designed to help familiarize the alchemist with the processes at work inside a body during a transmutation. Separating skin and tissue that way risks infection and the introduction of inorganic impurities, but more advanced alchemy involving living things all builds on this initial work."

Before moving on with my next transmutation attempt, I thoroughly examined the chimera. The two creatures had indeed been fused into one, but all the systems were out of balance. Parts of the shell had rendered some of the joints immobile, the heart was too small to support the new animal, the gills were partially covered by the shell, and the structure of the mouth was too heavy for the muscles there to operate effectively. The creature was still alive after the transmutation, but it was unlikely to survive an hour in this state.

I took a new sheet from the stack, and constructed a new array with a different purpose than the first. Carefully tracing each component in the array, I was pleased to note that the creature was still alive when I finished. I moved the jar onto the new array, and activated it.

As the jar was bathed in a golden glow, another transformation took place within it. This one was more subtle than the first, but which required more advanced concepts I'd taken the time to study before moving to live experiments. The slits for the gills opened wider, the small legs thickened and lengthened slightly, and the tail shrank somewhat.

When the light faded, the chimera's mouth began to open and close, and its labored breathing eased. An examination revealed that my attempt to transmute some of its unused muscle tissue to reinforce and enlarge the heart had succeeded.

I spent the remainder of the day creating chimeras of various types from the same two component animals. Some that could swim, some that crawled. Some that had scales, some with shells. Some that breathed water, some that could survive short stays in open air.

With each new chimera, my feel for the balance of organic systems improved, and they required less and less correction after the initial transmutation. By the time I'd run out of time and test animals, I was able to create these simple chimeras with one, flawless transmutation into a stable form.

. . .

With Psiren's robbery over, the tourists started to dwindle. After the first couple of days, my replicas stopped selling entirely. There were still some Psiren groupies and fans around town, but they just weren't interested in replicas of an old robbery target. Fortunately, now that I'd met Psiren, I had additional options. My repertoire expanded to include decks of the playing cards Psiren used, masks modeled after Psiren's, and even a service unique in Aquroya where I transmuted a perfect, form fitting Psiren costume directly onto a customer.

I had just completed such a transmutation for a particularly devoted female fan when I saw the detective in line right behind her. As she walked off, the detective approached my stand looking exceptionally irate.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"Running a souvenir stand," I replied.

The detective picked up a deck of cards. "And what's this?"

"A souvenir."

"Don't give me that. First you let Psiren get away, then I find you as good as supplying that thief."

"First of all, 'let her get away'? I jumped out a window after her. Where were your men? As far as this stand, how else am I supposed to survive? I was on my way out of town when you dragged me into your station, and turned this city into a prison for me."

"Say what you want, alchemist, but after that performance last time, I'm even more convinced you're working with Psiren. I will find a way to prove it. Mark my words."

"Say what you want, detective, but you and your men have proven yourselves incapable of adapting to, and dealing with, the added possibilities an alchemist brings to the table. Like it or not, detective, you need me."

"Let me make one thing crystal clear. The only reason I'm letting you tag along tonight is because I know you'll slip up sooner or later, and when you do, I want you close at hand so I can arrest you."

With that, the detective dropped the deck of cards back on my stand and stormed off. To my surprise, Ann was right behind him in the line.

"So, Psiren's merchandising agent is working with the police," she teased.

"Heh, I guess my secret's out," I replied nervously.

"I guess that means you got a better view of the robbery than you let on."

"I got a pretty good view, alright. The woman's an impressive alchemist. No doubt about that." With that, I reached into the pocket that held her transmuted cards, "but tonight, I'll be ready for her."

. . .

"What's this circle for?" asked the detective as I moved a rug into place concealing the large array I'd drawn on the museum floor.

"If I'm right, this array should limit her options, and hopefully, give us enough of an edge for your men to catch her."

Psiren's target this time was a large, cut ruby on display in a tower of this former castle turned museum. The only current way in or out was through the heavy oak door leading to the stone spiral staircase below. A window was present, but it was little more than an archery slit, far too narrow for a person to pass through.

The detective and I were alone in the room, the rest of his men guarding the entrance downstairs. the sounds of a struggle came from downstairs, and we knew it was time to get started. I'd just made it into my position by the window when the heavy lock on the door clicked open.

The door opened slowly, revealing a profoundly confident Psiren poised for her entrance, deck of cards in hand.

"Well, Psiren," I said, "I've been waiting for you, and our little rematch."

"My, my," she smugly replied, "yet another obsessed admirer come to overpower me." With that, she flicked her wrist theatrically, and dropped her deck of cards scattering them all over the floor. A shocked look formed on her face. "What?" she began before she was cut off by the sound of the detective closing and locking the door behind her.

"It's all over, Psiren," he said.

"How?" she asked, turning from her scattered cards to face me.

"Simple," I replied, "your card tricks rely on your use of alchemy to alter the structure of those playing cards. You can use alchemy to impart momentum, or rearrange the atomic bonds of the carbon in the plant matter to make a diamond edged cutting tool. You can even mess around with the metals in the ink to add strength and reinforce the structure to a metallic consistency, but none of that will work in here."

As I spoke, the detective locked a handcuff around Psiren's left wrist. "I've finally got you," he crowed.

"But how?"

"Your little souvenir gave me everything I needed," I responded, withdrawing one of the cards from my pocket. "You can transmute these in a thousand different ways, but the mass and composition remain constant thanks to the law of equivalent exchange. That means no matter what you try to change them into, since I know the composition from your little present..." Using my crutch, I moved the corner of the rug I was standing on, revealing part of the active transmutation circle. "...I can always transmute them right back into harmless playing cards."

With that, a slight smile began to play on Psiren's lips. "That's pretty clever. I guess I'll have to start taking you more seriously." With that, Psiren used her free hand to pull down the zipper on her top. I wasn't sure what was coming, but I braced myself for the worst.

Then I recognized the glowing transmutation circle tattooed on her chest. Ann. I was transfixed by the array when the jet of water struck me prone from behind. The water washed away my array, and the moment it was gone, Psiren's cards leaped to her cuffed hand, slicing through the metal as they went.

The cards coalesced into a sword, which she used to slice open the display case before grabbing the ruby. Wrapping her body in water up to the waist, Psiren was swept up in the flow and rode her jet of transmuted water out the door and down the stairs.

. . .

"So it's you."

Ann had just walked into the room where we were conducting our daily meetings.

"What are you talking about?" asked Ann, feigning confusion.

"I have to admit, you're quite a talented actress. All this time together and I never even suspected. It took seeing the transmutation circle to open my eyes."

"I told you I understood how slavish adherence to the law isn't always the right thing to do," she said, dropping her innocent act.

"So tell me. How is you stealing priceless artifacts from the museums the right thing to do?"

"I'm doing it to help you." I was taken aback by this answer, and by the unfamiliar sincerity in her eyes. It wasn't long before I regained my sense of reason and realized how impossible that explanation was. Damn she was a good actress.

"Nice try, but you're the whole reason I'm stuck in this town in the first place. You've been stealing since long before you ever met me, so tell me another one."

"But it's true." There was a pleading look in her eyes. Then she turned her head, looking at a wall. "Did you know this library is scheduled to be torn down this week?"

"Are you telling me you've been stealing these artifacts to raise money to save this library?" I asked cautiously.

"That's right," she said.

A glow suddenly drew her eyes to the table, where I had just finished a transmutation. I held up a gold pen for her inspection.

"They don't make laws against things that are impossible. Transmuting gold may not be easy, but I'm sure a savvy alchemist like yourself would have no problem pulling it off."

I transmuted the pen back to normal then continued. "I knew from the beginning that you weren't in it for the money. Do you know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think you do it for the rush. You enjoy breaking the law and daring anyone to try and catch you."

"Well," she asked, her muscles tensing, "what are you going to do know?"

In answer, I reached under the table and picked up cages of mice and birds. "I'm going to get back to work."

"What? Why aren't you turning me in?"

"Well, I've got a few reasons, but the most important one is that I owe you. You saved my life. And really, the only reason I'm helping the police at all is because they won't let me leave town until they catch you. For now, I'm content to stick around here and finish up this research."

. . .

When the detective brought word a couple days later about the next robbery, I told him I was sitting it out. Besides the fact that I now knew her identity, I was also getting more than a little tired of her humiliating me.

Instead, I decided to work the crowd Psiren attracted every time she announced one of these robberies. The fans were rabid, and even the casual and curious travelers were buying everything from binoculars to souvenirs.

It would seem my reputation had spread farther than I had thought, since out of towners were approaching me saying they'd heard from their friends that they had to check out my stand. It would seem I'd become a part of the Aquroya tourist culture without even realizing it.

By the end of that night, I'd made more money than I had in the weeks before. I probably had enough to buy a decent pair of automail legs if I was ever allowed to leave Aquroya.

. . .

When I arrived at the library the following morning, I was greeted by a disturbing sight. Where before a massive structure that was practically a work of art in its own right once stood, there was now only a pile of rubble.

It seemed Ann was telling the truth about the library being scheduled to be torn down. I was just getting over the fact that I'd lost my private work space when I realized that the books were still in there. Either there was no other place for the books to be moved to, or Ann had made her "I'm going to save the library" speech to someone who worked there, delaying them in moving their collection until it was too late. Whatever the cause, I could actually see books lying among the rubble.

Without thinking of how long it would take to search the rubble, I pushed off from my crutches and flung myself head first into the debris. I had dug up and discarded a handful of books when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Looks like you could use an excavator," came Ann's cheerful voice.

As I turned angrily toward her, I caught sight of her outfit. She wore a white blouse under a light leather vest, glasses, and a helmet with a light affixed to it. A leather satchel at her side visibly contained brushes and rock hammers.

"What's with that getup?" I asked, then thought better of it. "Nevermind. How could you not mention the demolition was this close?"

"Well," she pouted playfully. "I told you the library was going to be torn down. Sadly, I wasn't able to save it in time." Her eyes were sparkling with the beginnings of tears.

"I already told you I don't buy that story about you trying to save the library," I responded annoyed.

"And so," she continued ignoring me, "when I saw this great repository of knowledge laid low, I realized my true calling. to do what I could to help recover lost knowledge."

"Uh huh."

"But, tragically, the museum that hired me to restore their lost relics is going to be torn down."

"That still doesn't explain the helmet. Wait! You're working in a museum!"

"You shouldn't take that tone, or I might have to reconsider giving you your present."

With that, Ann produced from her satchel a heavy leather bound folio, a paperclipped stack of papers, and a hard back text book.

"You saved them!" I exulted and lunged to embrace her. Unfortunately, in my excitement, I forgot about my missing leg, and fell toward her as I tried putting weight on my nonexistent leg. As I tumbled forward, I grabbed for anything within reach to break my fall.

"Well, I knew you'd be excited, but don't you think this is a bit overboard?"

It was then that I realized what I'd caught hold of. My face turned red as I immediately took my hands off her chest, and promptly finished the face-plant I was in the middle of when I grabbed her chest for support.

. . .

By the time Psiren announced her next robbery, I'd reached the limit of what I could learn from this text on Chimeras. The paper on the philosopher stone, while interesting in its own right, and potentially useful should I ever obtain a philosopher stone, wasn't directly useful to my goal. As for the folio, that had some promise. It dealt directly with the alchemic assembly of human tissues from inorganic matter. The anatomical information was incredibly detailed and a complete breakdown of the body components provided me with a shopping list for when I was finally ready to transmute my leg.

Perhaps more importantly, these were letters, which meant they contained the names and addresses of experts on the subject. And all that stood between me and finding those experts was the detective's order not to leave town.

There was nothing more I could learn about organic and medical alchemy staying in Aquroya. It was time for me to wrap up my business here and leave. Still, I couldn't just turn her in. She saved my life, helped me with my research, and I owed it to her to play the game, to catch her fair and square.

The trouble was, I'd gone up against her twice already, and failed to bring her in either time. I was going to need a plan. Psiren's alchemy style was to use her transmuted playing cards and Aquroya's plentiful water as the base material for her transmutations. I'd already tried neutralizing her card tricks with a counter transmutation, and I doubted the same trick would work twice. No doubt she'd already switched to cards with different compositions to prevent just that.

I had little hope of matching her in a physical competition of strength or speed with a missing leg, so whatever I decided I'd have to be able to do it standing still. I knew she'd' be most on her guard during the actual robbery, so my odds would be better if I confronted her someplace she'd feel more relaxed and secure.

I decided that with her penchant for using water in her alchemy, she would probably be very confident if the contest took place on skiffs on open water. I knew where she was going to rob, and I also knew where she'd be staying, so I chose an appropriate spot along her likely route.

. . .

There was a full moon on the night of the robbery, and I waited on the water, listening to the crowd in the distance. When I heard a massive cheer rise, I lifted myself to a standing position using my crutches. From my bag, I withdrew a fist sized metal ball, on which I had enscribed several transmutation circles.

It wasn't long before Psiren arrived, riding a skiff of her own.

"Well, what brings you out here?" she asked in mock surprise.

"It's time for me to leave town, and unfortunately, the only way for me to do that without becoming a wanted man is by taking you in."

A smile of anticipation crossed her lips. "I hope you don't expect me to just turn myself in." With that, she passed a hand over her deck of cards, forming it into a sword.

"If I did, I'd have asked you before you put on the costume. You did save my life. I owe you a fair fight."

With that, Psiren used her alchemy on the water under her boat, causing her boat to speed toward mine. As she sped toward me, she shifted her weight, intending to use her sword to cut my right crutch in half.

I was ready for her. Lifting myself by my crutches and stomping down with my left foot to the deck of my boat, I transmuted the carbon in the wood of my boat and crutches into a diamond lattice, mimicking the paper alchemy Psiren used on her cards.

Her blade struck my alchemically reinforced crutch and shattered, reverting to ordinary cards and falling into the water.

Seeing an opening, I lobed the metal sphere into the water beneath her boat. When the ball hit the water, the filings I'd packed into some of the grooves came lose, causing the transmutation circle to complete and activate. Glowing violet under the water, the exact nature of the transmutation being performed was concealed.

Psiren braced herself for an unknown threat, and that saved her from falling from her boat when three metal spikes punctured the bottom of her boat, anchoring it to the bed of the canal via transmuted chains.

Acting quickly, Psiren activated the array on her chest. Points of pink light on the surface of the water glowed brightly against the dim underwater purple glow from my transmutation. The cards that had fallen into the water earlier shot at me like daggers, fueled by Psiren's alchemic power. I let go of my crutches, taking cover by lying prone in the bottom of my skiff.

As I did so, Psiren's cards turned in midair and began to rain down toward me. With nowhere left to dodge, I struck my left foot against the skiff. The boat glowed purple as the sides bent and twisted, wrapping me in a protective cocoon.

I heard the transmuted cards impact my shield and embed themselves into it. once the impacts stopped, I transmuted the boat back to normal and saw all of the cards embedded a few inches into the wood.

"It's over, Psiren," I said as I climbed back to a standing position.

"Now, now," she replied. "You know I have more up my sleeve than card tricks." With a dramatic flourish, Psiren moved to raise a tentacle of water. The tentacle lashed toward my skiff, but just before it struck, a creature resembling a starfish, granite gray in color, and possessed of eight "points" flew out of the water and wrapped itself firmly around Psiren's left hand.

Her concentration disrupted by surprise, the tentacle of water she was employing fell apart and broke over my boat like a wave rather than a hammer. I was wet, but otherwise unharmed.

Meanwhile, more of those gray creatures continued to leap out of the canal and latch on to Psiren. Before she was able to react in a meaningful way, she was covered in the creatures and completely immobilized.

"These are-" she began.

"Chimeras, yes. A combination of octopus and barnacle. That orb had more than one array on it. One for tying down your boat and one to make these chimeras. As for making them target you and not me, our mutual detective friend helped out with that. I had him douse your loot with a highly concentrated composite pheromone."

. . .

I began to separate these chimeras back into their component creatures, releasing Psiren from her organic cocoon so the police who'd arrived could replace it with a more conventional restraint. While I worked, Ann and I had a chance to talk and say our goodbyes.

"You really should be proud of yourself. You're the first to capture me since a young man named Edward Elric."

"The Fullmetal Alchemist!" I'd had no idea Psiren had any connection to the state alchemist who'd ousted Cornello.

"That's right, and since you captured me, I'm going to do for you what I did for him, point you in the direction of what you're looking for. Edward was missing a couple of limbs himself. His right arm and left leg. I don't know how it happened, but I do know he asked me about the philosopher stone."

"You mean he was researching-"

"The same thing you're researching. I think so. Go to Central. A resourceful alchemist like you ought to have no trouble getting your hands on any reports or research notes that may be in the military's possession."

"Thank you.

"Oh," she added as she was being put into the car, "If you run into Ed, let him know I'm still looking forward to him stopping by for another match."

. . .

As I made my way to the train station the net day, I passed by a group of people holding newspapers and talking excitedly.

"It says here, Psiren escaped custody before they could even get her to the prison."

"They'll never hold her."

"What do you guys see in her?"

When I heard that, I remembered something she'd said to me, and I felt compelled to answer.

"Psiren's the life's blood of this town. Without the tourism she brings in, I would have starved to death on the streets. I'll wager the same can be said of you."

With that, I continued on my way, her words still echoing in my thoughts. "I'm doing it to help you." Thanks to her, not only did I have a good start on my research, but the tourism business she brought Aquroya earned me enough money to afford my pick of automail once I got to Rush Valley.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Thus concludes the second chapter. I hope you all enjoyed the nostalgic return to Aquroya, and had fun with seeing everyone's favorite phantom thief again.


	3. Almost Whole Again

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 3) Almost whole again.  
by Howlin

 

 

 

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

When I arrived in Rush Valley, I was struck by how much more inviting and familiar it felt than Aquroya had. While not exactly a desert town, situated between two cliffs, it was arid enough to remind me of Liore.

As I walked the dry, hard packed dirt roads, merchants kept singling me out of the crowd, addressing me directly. It wasn't so surprising. A one legged man would have only one reason to come to a city who's economy was based on artificial prosthetics. Still, this wasn't the sort of decision you make on an impulse buy or because of a high pressure sales pitch. I was determined to shop around and find the best mechanic in town. After all, this leg would be with me until I figured out human transmutation, and odds were that could take quite a while.

I had traveled some distance before I came to an unpleasant realization. I knew nothing about automail, and honestly wouldn't know a master work from a piece of salvaged scrap. Every salesman was quick to call their automail the best, but as they went over components and features I was lost.

Liore was a backward town in more ways than one. We had no alchemists, and we had no automail engineers. If it weren't for the Fullmetal Alchemist and the doctor from Aquroya, I wouldn't even have known it was possible to replace human limbs with machines.

As I was reflecting on this, I bumped into a much larger man. He was part of a big crowd and didn't seem to notice being jostled. Cheers and taunts were coming from the tightly packed audience, and I decided to have a closer look. Squeezing through the crows wasn't easy on crutches, but somehow I made it.

What I found at the center was an arm wrestling competition, though of a different sort than I'd ever seen. All of the contestants were using mechanical arms, testing not one's physical training or condition, but perhaps one's judgement in choosing a mechanic. A large pile of broken tables stood as a testament to the superhuman strength the contestants possessed.

I was overjoyed at having, finally, a way of getting a feel for what makes good automail, and I began to watch. The champion who was accepting challengers was a massive figure with two automail arms that resembled nothing so much as artillery pieces. As excited as I was to see this contest, when I watched the first match my spirits fell.

A man with a more human proportioned, but still large automail arm challenged the champion. The men locked hands and began to struggle. I saw the announcer reach under the table. A faint yellow light was momentarily visible under the table a split second before the champ slammed his challenger through the table.

It was alchemy. They were using it to fix the contest. While this continued I'd get no meaningful comparisons. So I decided to intervene, subtly. The next challenger was an attractive, dark skinned girl. The crowd jeered as she sat down and locked arms with the champ. The girl's automail was slender and the difference in scale was such that her entire hand ended up holding just one of the champ's fingers. By contrast, half her forearm disappeared within the champ's grip.

This was an obvious mismatch, obvious even to me, but I'd resolved to see a fair contest and despite my view of her chances, I followed through on my original plan. When I saw the announcer reach under the table, I made my move. Lifting myself on my crutches, I stomped my foot down, activating my transmutation circle. A could of dirt flew up under the table and, directed by my alchemy, coated the bottom of the table with a thin layer of ceramic, altering the table's composition slightly and obscuring any array on the table's underside. With the crowd focused on the action above the table, I don't think anyone noticed the faint violet glow of my minor transmutation.

What happened net completely blew my mind. The champ's better grip gave him an initial advantage, but soon, the girl was pushing him back. A look of panic passed from the champ to the announcer, who rolled his eyes. After a momentary pause, however, the announcer looked as concerned as the champ. No doubt he'd tried to activate the array obliterated by my transmutation.

Impossible as it had seemed when she sat down, this young girl crossed a critical point in the contest and the champ was plowed through the table, shattering it like so many before. On the ground, the champ exchanged helpless, confused looks with the announcer as the girl gathered up the prize money.

. . .

"Excuse me. Miss. Please, wait up."

She hadn't been walking very fast, but with me on one leg, it didn't take much to outpace me. The girl had left immediately after collecting her prize money. By the time I'd fought my way out of the crowd, she was turning a corner. I'd only just managed to get close enough to call out to her.

She paused and glanced back at me, a confused look on her face. "Hello?"

"Hello," I said as I hurried to catch up. "I saw you match. You were unbelievable."

For a moment she looked very far away as she said, "Thanks."

"I was hoping you could recommend a mechanic. Obviously whoever made your automail is good with arms, but I'm looking for someone who's talented with legs. Do you know anyone like that?"

A mischievous grin formed on her lips, and she said, "I might know someone like that." Then she crouched down a bit, and before I knew what was happening, she was landing on a second story rooftop at the end of an inhuman leap.

"Amazing," I marveled, and again came that far away pride from her. As impressive as her demonstration had been, what had me truly stunned was the fact that I hadn't even noticed that her legs were fake. All of her automail was so perfectly proportioned that I'd never know it was an addition to her body without seeing it up close. It was a far cry from the overstated style the champ had displayed, and I knew right then that I needed to commission her mechanic.

. . .

The girl, Paninya I learned was her name, guided me to the unlikelist of places. At the very end of a dark alley was a dirty looking shop. As questionable as the outside looped, if anything, the interior made me less sure of my decision. A single, dim lightbulb hung overhead, and the shop's location meant natural sunlight wasn't going to be much help. The poor lighting, the cracked paint on the walls, and the grey monotone color scheme all conspired to make the place seem dingy and decrepit.

Indeed, were it not for the numerous pieces of automail arranged and displayed, I might have assumed this place long abandoned.

"Hey, Dominik," Paninya called out, "We've got a customer."

Paninya headed into the back to find Dominik. Meanwhile, I started looking over the legs that were arranged around the shop. As I ran my hand over the thigh of a particular piece, part of the side-panel popped open, startling me. Taking a closer look, I managed to determine that this was a concealed pistol holster, built right into the leg.

"Cool," I said to myself.

"That piece isn't for you," came a gruff voice from behind me. I turned and saw an older man with short, grey hair and a stern face looking down at me.

"I'm sorry, it's just-" I began.

"That leg's for a fighter," he said as he walked past me, dropped to one knee, and started examining the mechanism. "A kid like you, you'll probably never be in a real fight. Not like the kind you'd need something like this for."

As he spoke, my mind flashed back to the things I'd seen. The screams of the dying soldiers as the alchemic explosion tore them apart. The gun shots that were fired into Scar. The slowly pooling blood from the first chimera I'd killed, and the red mist that used to be the head of the second.

When Dominik turned around, he paused, looking into my eyes, and though I knew he couldn't see those horrors reflected, he could clearly perceive their resonance. Softening his gaze, he placed a strong hand on my shoulder.

"Let's head into the back and get you sized."

. . .

"Girl," called Dominik curtly as he led me into a room where a blonde young woman waring lose fitting coveralls and sporting numerous ear piercings sat. At Domink's word, she sprung to her feet and stuffed a piece of paper she'd been reading into a random pocket.

"Take his measurements and handle the explanations. I'll get started on the assembly." With that, Dominik continued on, and the girl sighed in relief and relaxed."

"Hi, I'm Winry," she said with an introductory bow. "Looks like we're replacing that leg, right?"

"Right."

"Okay, let's get started, then. Take off your pants."

"Huh?"

"Well, I can't take precision measurements without being able to see what I'm measuring. Now, don't be shy."

I complied and Winry began using a tape measure on every major dimension of my lower body.

"Now, I'm guessing you haven't been fitted with automail before. Am I right?"

"That's right."

"Hm, the amputation was clean and surgical. That's good. I've seen a lot worse."

"Originally it was just my foot, but it got infected before I could get to a doctor."

"I see. It's well healed, so I take it you took your sweet time coming out here. Had second thoughts?"

"No. I was delayed. Why would I have second thoughts?"

"You don't know? Automail is the best option in terms of limb replacement because it's connected right into your nervous system, allowing you to control it just like you did with your original limb. As a result, however, the process of connecting the new leg will be very painful."

"I didn't know that. I don't think it changes anything, though."

"I understand. You're all set. It'll take us about a day to assemble your new leg."

"Wait. What about all those limbs out front?" I asked as I put my pants back on.

"Trust me. You don't want any of those. They're display models to show off the craftsman's capabilities. The piece that's going to become your leg, you'll want it custom manufactured for your body."

I couldn't argue with that logic. It was part of the reason I chose this place. I would certainly rather wait a while for a leg that was perfect for me than end up stuck with something that felt out of proportion and foreign. Still, I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

"I guess I'm on crutches until then."

Winry smirked. "Have a little faith," she replied. "Your real leg won't be done today, but we can still give you a loaner until then."

. . .

The leg I was to use wasn't as high quality as actual automail. I could stand on it, and walk slowly, but that was about it. Still, I was so elated to be off crutches that I hardly cared.

I was in the mood to explore, so I asked Paninya to show me around while Dominik and Winry were working. I figured she'd know the city pretty well. And while we were out, I could see about finding an inn.

Paninya led me along a path partway up one side of the cliffs that bordered and overlooked Rush Valley. The buildings in this part of town were built into the cliff face itself. The day was coming to an end, and Paninya stopped me and pointed out across the town. As I looked out, the sun began to set. The sky was awash with purples and oranges.

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

"It gets better," replied Paninya.

She was right. As the sun sank lower, the lights of the city below began to come on, bathing the surrounding cliffs in a soft, yellow glow. For a brief instant, the stars above, the lights of the sky below, and the last colorful bands of the setting sun all came together in a single, scenic view.

The magic of that moment passed, and the night had fully come. Paninya led the way toward a nearby hotel. We parted ways, I rented a room, and got some sleep.

. . .

When I arrived at Domink's shop, I was nervous, trying to imagine what the experience would be like. Winry had warned me that the process would be painful.

"Ah, you're here!" called Paninya as I walked in.

"Hi," I replied. "Are they ready for me yet?"

"Yep. Come with me and we'll gt you all set up."

Paninya led me into the back, where Dominik and Winry were sitting on an old, green couch.

Winry sprang to her feet. "So, you all set to trade in that loaner for the real deal?"

"I think so."

"Great, have a seat, and don't be nervous."

Winry led me to the couch, and quickly removed the crude prosthetic they'd given me. Meanwhile, Domninik stepped into the other room and retrieved his tools. That was when I got my first glance at my new leg.

I was surprised at the detail and level of articulation. Anatomical details one hardly notices in day to day life were all there, reproduced with loving accuracy, right down to the joints of the toes.

Winry and Paninya stood on either side of me as Dominik started his work. The first part was harmless enough, last minute measuring, fitting, and double checking how extensive the damage to my leg was. once he was done with the preliminary work, Winry and Paninya took hold of my arms.

"Here comes the hard part," Winry began. "In order for this to work, we have to connect your automail to every one of your nerves. There isn't any kind of anesthetic we can give you that'll make this process any easier. Are you ready?"

I blanched a little, swallowed hard, and nodded my assent. A small stab of pain came as a scalpel cut into the flesh that had grown over the stump of my leg. Then came the real pain.

Dominik took hold of the first nerve and suddenly it was as though my missing leg was back and on fire. As Dominik continued to work, the pain grew more intense and more complete. I could hear myself screaming and Winry and Paninya were calling out to me that it'd be over soon. I couldn't feel them holding down my thrashing arms. I couldn't feel my screaming lungs. All I could feel was the pain in my nonexistent leg. It was like needles were driven straight through every inch of missing flesh, each coated in alcohol and salt, and lit on fire. If this pain had been from a normal source, my nerves would have been destroyed already and the pain would have stopped. If this had been normal pain, my brain would have shut down and the pain would have been limited in how intense it could become. But this wasn't normal pain.

I lost all sense of time amid the pain. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the pain began to fade. As the intensity of the burning pain in my right leg diminished, I became aware of the rest of my body again. I was lying on my back on Dominik's couch. A cold, damp cloth was resting on my forehead. I became aware of a soreness in all the muscles of my body, and looked around the room with the red spots starting to clear from my vision.

"Ow," I croaked and noticed that my throat was sore.

"Don't worry," said Paninya who was standing over me. "The pain goes away pretty quick. You'll be feeling better than you did before in an hour or so." To accentuate her point, Paninya held up her automail hand and clenched a fist.

"I guess you would know," I replied. "Is it safe for me to move, or will that screw something up at this point?"

"You're not going to hurt anything. Dominik's stuff doesn't just fall apart you now. You'd have to try pretty hard to mess up that leg of yours."

"Okay," I said and started to try sitting up. My body felt too weak, and I couldn't manage to pull myself up.

"You wore yourself out pretty bad when Dominik was attaching your leg. Winry and I had a time of it trying to hold you still."

"Sorry," I said, feeling embarrassed at the loss of self-control.

"Hey, hey. Don't worry about it. Everyone responds that way to attaching automail."

"Oh," said Winry as she walked into the room, "you're awake."

"Yeah," I managed weakly as I again tried to pull myself up from my lying position. This time Paninya took hold of my shoulder hand helped me partway to a sitting position.

"The pain in your leg'll go away faster if you try to move it," Paninya offered.  
Looking down at my new automail leg, the steel catching the light of the small lightbulb in the room, I trued to move my toes. It was effortless. In stark contrast to my exhausted body, the automail responded immediately and without protest. Indeed, as I explored the range of movement in my new leg, I felt better rather than worse.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" asked Paninya.

"Your nervous system's acclimating itself to the automail," explained Winry. "The residual pain is kind of like an afterimage. When you give the nerves something to else to do, they start to figure out they've got other jobs and stop sending pain."

I tentatively began running my hand over the lg, feeling the smooth metal that was here replacing my flesh. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a panel opened on the thigh, and I recognized the mechanism as the same concealed holster I'd seen yesterday.

"Cool feature," said Paninya getting a closer look.

"Yeah," I agreed, a little confused that Dominik had gone with this model leg after saying I didn't need it.

"He's always doing that!" exclaimed an exasperated Winry. "Always building in extras. What's wrong with automail that just does what the limb it's replacing did but better?"

"I-" I started to reply before Paninya jumped in.

"It's just Domink's style, Winry. Besides, you can't argue with quality."

"I guess," replied Winry, unconvinced. I got the impression they'd had this argument before.

. . .

Paninya was right about the recovery time, and I was on my feet within an hour, feeling the best I'd felt in weeks. Hopping up and down to test out my new limb, I felt almost whole for the first time since I encountered the chimera in Liore.

"I don't think that's gonna work," said Winry as I sat down and reached for my pants. I looked at them a moment before I realized what she was talking about.

"Oh," I said, holding up the closed up nub of the right pant leg. "Looks like you're right. Can you get me a pen?"

"A pen?" asked Paninya. "Wouldn't a pair of scissors be a better choice?"

I winked at her. "Nah, trust me on this one."

Paninya gave me a funny look for a moment, then shrugged and retrieved a pen for me. Taking the pen, I sketched a quick array on the fabric and activated it. A faint violet glow enveloped the garment, and the fibers around the closed right leg unwove themselves, snaking out as if animated by my alchemy. In a flash, the fabric rewove itself and I was holding a normal pair of pants.

"You're an alchemist," Winry noted with a smile.

"That's right," I replied as I pulled on my freshly transmuted pants. "Hm. Still down to one shoe though. Guess I'll need to pick up a new one."

"Why?" asked Paninya as she poked my pant leg. "If you can do that, why not just make a new shoe with alchemy?"

"Equivalent exchange," responded Winry before I could, drawing looks from both Paninya and myself.

"That's right," I said. "Have you studied alchemy?"

"No. I just grew up with a pair of pint sized alchemists. A thing or two rubs off."

"That's nice," interjected Paninya, "but I still don't know what that means."

"'Humankind cannot gain anything,'" I quoted, "'without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange.' Basically it means you can't make something from nothing. I could rearrange the fibers in those pants easily, but I can't gain or lose material in the process."

"Okay. That makes sense I guess."

"Good, now I've got a question. I was wandering this city for a while. I saw dozens of places to get new feet, but not one place for shoes."

. . .

"Feel better?" asked Paninya as we were walking out of the shoe store.

"Almost," I replied, drawing an array on a notepad. I pressed the paper against the bottom of each of my new boots in turn and used alchemy to transfer the array onto the heavy soles. "There, perfect."

I pocketed the notepad as Paninya and I rounded a corner.

"There she is! That's the girl who cheated us out of our prize money!"

It was the men from the arm wrestling contest.

"You lost fair and square," replied Paninya. "You're just a sore loser who couldn't handle losing to a girl."

"Don't play dumb with me, girly," interjected the smaller man who had played the part of referee. "You tampered with the table using alchemy."

"Alchemy?" said Paninya as she turned hurt eyes my direction.

"You were the ones using alchemy to cheat!" I shot back. "All I did was obliterate your array.

"So it wasn't a fair contest from the start?" said Paninya almost in tears. I placed my hands on her shoulders and turned her to face me.

"You were the first person after I stopped them cheating."

"Well, this really is touching," began the big guy. "Now that we've settled that, we'll just be taking our money and be on our way."

Fire flashed in Paninya's eyes through the tears. "This is all your fault to begin with!" She stepped past me toward the big guy, dropped to one knee, pulled up her pant leg, and launched a missile from her knee." Panicked, the big guy held up his massive automail arms in front of him as a shield before disappearing in a cloud of dust thrown up by the explosion.

The smaller man and I both just stared in shock for a moment. Paninya chuckled to herself.

Then, a massive hand reached out of the dust cloud and grabbed Paninya's leg. The big guy's right arm was hanging limp at his side, obviously having taken the brunt of the blast. With his left arm, he lifted Paninya off her feet upside down.

"Paninya!" I exclaimed and began to rush forward.

"Not so fast," said the smaller man as he stepped in my way. "You didn't forget about me, did you?" he asked as he produced an embroidered handkerchief from a pocket.

The larger man swung Paninya over his head. The smaller man slapped his handkerchief on the ground, causing stone spikes to erupt from the ground accompanied by yellow arcs of energy.

As the spikes erupted from the ground in a trail toward me, I raised a foot, and stomped on the ground. Purple energy shot out from the impact point, stopping further spikes from erupting, and breaking all the spikes off from their bases.

Paninya slammed into the ground, but she managed to get her free automail limbs below her, cushioning the impact and taking control of her situation.

Spinning on the foot that I'd just used to transmute, I launched a kick at one of the broken spikes that were suspended in the air by my alchemy.

Bracing herself on the ground with her automail arm, Paninya launched a kick with her free leg, smashing through the mechanisms of her opponent's hand.

My opponent ducked just below the spike I alchemically launched at him. I advanced, kicking a spike toward him with every step.

Paninya's leg was released, and she sprung to her feet. The big guy's left arm was damaged by her kick, but he managed to form a fist. Bracing her stance, Paninya prepared to meet his punch with her own, matching brute force with brute force.

The smaller man was barely a step ahead of my birage, narrowly dodging each spike launched. All the while, I closed the distance between us.

Two steel fists met, with the sound of crumpling metal. Paninya's fist was embedded up to her elbow in the ruined automail limb of her opponent. The small man side stepped one last spike, and dodged right in to my left foot, which impacted heavily on the side of his face. his limp form flew backward five feet before coming to a rest at the feet of his larger companion.

With both his arms rendered so much scrap, and his companion lying unconscious at his feet, the large man dropped to his knees and hung his head.

. . .

Paninya was there to see me off as I boarded the train for Central.

"You know as great as this automail is, I do have one complaint," I said as I lifted myself on to the steps.

"Oh?" asked Paninya.

"As rugged as this leg is, it'll be tough to use coming in for maintenance as an excuse to visit."  
Paninya smiled faintly.

"Are you still down about that context?" I asked.

"I wanted to show everyone Domink's automail was the best. Beating those cheaters didn't prove anything."

"I was pretty impressed with the fight afterwards, myself, but if it bothers you that much, I have an idea."

"Oh?"

"You're the champ now, however you got the title. Why not just hold your own context? A fair one this time."

Paninya's smile returned in full, just as the train started moving.

"I will!" she called after me. "Next time you come by, you'll be visiting the real Rush Valley automail arm wrestling champion!"

. . .

Author's comments:  
I hope everyone's enjoyed this third chapter, which, incidentally, concludes our protagonist's time playing in the shallow end of the pond. Now we're full speed ahead to Central, with its layered conspiracies, closely guarded secrets, and endless opportunities for learning and adventure. But I won't tease too much, since I have no idea how long it'll be before I can get the next chapter written.


	4. The Alchemy Exam

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 4) The Alchemy Exam  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

It felt strange being back in Central. After everything I'd been through these past months, the familiar streets seemed strange and alien. It wasn't long before I realized that feeling wasn't just in my head. Things, large and small, really had changed in Central.

At first it was the small things I noticed. Fewer blue uniformed officers of the state military were out and about. Inquiring about that change led me to one of the bigger changes. Fuhrer King Bradley was dead.

The details were sketchy. Apparently the military was trying to keep the details under wraps. A lot of rumors were floating around but very few facts.

What was certain, however, was that without Fuhrer Bradley, Lieutenant Fuhrer Hakuro had been unable to maintain order on his own. He was forced to ceed power to the civilian government. While Hakuro retained the title of Fuhrer, his actual authority had been cut back to include only matters pertaining to the military.

When I'd last left Central, I wasn't sure how long I'd be gone, so I had settled my accounts and turned my keys over to my landlord. Without a home to return to, I resolved to get started with my research. Psiren had suggested looking over the military's records on Edward Elric, and that meant paying a visit to the Central Library's main branch.

. . .

I climbed the white stone stairs leading up to the library. The massive green flag of Amestris hung down from a balcony. When I reached the door, an armed guard stopped me.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but access to this library is restricted to State Alchemists. I'm going to have to ask you to turn back."

I was about to respond when someone called out behind me.

"Come quick, boys. It's that alchemist from Liore."

I was made. Tensing visibly, I prepared for a confrontation. Maintaining awareness of where the library guard was, I slowly turned toward the call, and saw three men in blue military uniforms running up the stairs towards me.

"I'll be damned. It is him," said one of the soldiers as they closed the distance. That was when I recognized them. It was the three men who'd ridden out the alchemic explosion with me in the makeshift bunker.

Clapping a hand on my shoulder, one of the men asked, "How have you been? After you saved our asses in Liore, you just disappeared into the desert."

"Speaking of which," chimed in another, "Weren't you missing an extremity last time we saw you?"

"Boys," interjected the third, "There'll be plenty of time to catch up at the bar after we buy the man who saved our lives a drink."

Before I had time to fully process what was going on, I was being swept up by these men.

. . .

"So, you want to read the military's files on the Fullmetal Alchemist," said Frank, the largest of the three soldiers. When he stood up, Frank was nearly a foot taller than I was. He was dark skinned, and while not exactly a giant, was thickly muscled. In the course of our conversation since arriving at the bar, I'd come to the conclusion that he was reasonably intelligent. He was also honest and prone to giving people the benefit of the doubt in turn. His response reflected a simple worldview. "You can read anything in the library you want if you pass the state alchemy exam."

"Becoming a State Alchemist isn't exactly easy, Frank," chimed in Melvin. Melvin was a well-read and curious sort with a pale complexion and glasses. While he didn't know much of anything in depth, he possessed a passing knowledge of a wide variety of subjects. "To even attempt the exam you need a recommendation from one of the higher ups. Then you need to take the written exam which is tough for even experienced alchemists."

"Don't forget the interview," added Ken, a short, mousy fellow. "I'm sure the interviewers will be very interested to hear what part you played in the alchemic explosion there."

"Ken," snapped Frank, "he saved our lives. How could you suspect him of being involved with that."

"Take it easy, Frank. I'm as grateful to be still alive as anyone, but you have to look at this from their prospective. If you don't think about things like this, they can blindside you."

"Ken's right, Frank," said Melvin. "We know he's okay, but to the military, he's an outsider and an unknown."

"I guess you guys are right," conceded Frank.

"All this is moot," I said, "since I don't know anyone in the command structure who'll sponsor me taking the test in the first place."

"Now that," said Ken, "is something we may be able to help you with."

"You mean the Colonel?" asked Frank.

"Who?" I asked.

"Colonel Travis Daniels," said Melvin, "more commonly known as the Swarm Alchemist. Our commanding officer."

"And how do you plan on getting the colonel to do us a favor, Ken?" asked Frank. "The man's never exactly been thrilled with us."

"Why doesn't he like you?" I asked, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

"He's a control freak," answered Frank.

"That's putting it nicely," responded Melvin. "When we got back to the command post after what happened in Liore, he threatened to bring us up on charges for abandoning our post."

"How DO you plan on getting him to sponsor me?" I asked.

Ken smiled. "The Colonel's a hard ass, but he's not stupid. I don't know much about alchemy, but I do know only two groups of people survived what happened in Liore."

"The Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric, did something to protect a group on the outskirts of the city," said Melvin.

"The important thing, added Ken, "is that out of all the State Alchemists present, the only ones who were able to pull that off were you and Fullmetal."

. . .

"So, you're the Alchemist my men reported encountering in Liore." It wasn't a question. The Swarm Alchemist wore round, reflective sunglasses, concealing any possible hint of expression that might betray the detached, clinical tone of his voice.

"I would like to take the State Alchemy exam." His expression never changed. It took everything I had not to squirm beneath his gaze. I felt like a bug under a microscope.

"You rescued three soldiers of the State Military from the alchemic event in Liore. Your presence in Liore during an active insurrection, however, remains unexplained and concerning."

"I an a native of that city," I offered by way of explanation. "I'd been away studying Alchemy in Central when the trouble started. I'd only just arrived back."  
If I agree to sponsor your examination, you will fall under my command. Your successes and failures will reflect on me, and your actions will be my responsibility."

"I understand, sir."

"I do not tolerate insubordination. As a State Alchemist you would be granted considerable discretion, however under no circumstances will that discretion extend to disobeying orders. You will be given enough information to act within your role, but I will not explain the reasons you have been assigned your objectives, or how those objectives intersect with the larger picture. If you ever think you understand the big picture and think to act contrary to your orders in pursuit of that perception, you will be subject to immediate, harsh disciplinary action regardless of the outcome. If you don't feel you can work within these constraints, you are free to walk away right now."

"Does this mean you are willing to sponsor me, sir?"

"I will support you taking the exam. The report my men filed tells me you have the raw talent required to pass, but the State Alchemy Exam tests more than raw talent. It also measures your intellectual grasp of alchemic theory and the breadth of your learning. You have six weeks to prepare. I advise you find a private library and spend it studying. It would be a shame if you ended up wasting both our time by failing."

. . .

"I know the perfect place," said Ken after I finished relaying the Colonel's words to my new friends. "A few years back, one of the State Alchemists just disappeared one day. The military sent some people in to collect his experiments, but no one did anything about his library."

"Wait a minute," interjected Melvin. "Are you talking about the old Tucker Estate?"

"Exactly. No one ever goes in there, and no one will care if you use the place to study. Best part is, it's the same library Fullmetal used preparing for his exam."

"Ken," said Frank, "don't you think you should mention why no one ever goes to that place?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Superstitious nonsense," replied Ken.

"The place is haunted," argued Frank.

"Story is," said Melvin coming between the two, "the State Alchemist who lived there murdered his daughter. Since then, people have claimed to see the ghost of a little girl wandering the grounds."

"That's kinda creepy even without the ghost," I noted. "Are there any alternatives?"

"There are a few private libraries in Central," said Melvin, "but convincing their owners to let you use them will take time."

"And since the exam's so close," added Ken, "I don't think you can afford the extra time, even assuming one of the others would let you use their library."

As we spoke, we'd been walking the streets of Central. Ken brought us to a stop in front of a palatial estate. The lawn was baddy overgrown, but oddly the windows were all unbroken. As though the ruffians and vandals were intimidated by the sinister reputation.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Frank. The large man visibly shivered when he glanced at the house.

I signed. "I guess I don't have much choice." With that,k I crouched down and hopped the nine foot tall fence, landing in the overgrown yard.

Momentarily forgetting his fear, Frank whistled. "that automail's even more impressive than I'd heard."

"Yeah," I replied, "but I wouldn't recommend you rush out and trade up for it. Hurts like hell."

"Don't bother," said Melvin as I moved to open the gate. "We need to report back in."

"Wait," I said. "So you're leaving me here alone?"

"Don't worry,: said Ken as the trio quickly moved off. "Like I said, it's all superstitious nonsense."

With that, the three had withdrawn out of sight and earshot. I was completely alone in the front yard of this allegedly haunted house. I turned to the door, swallowed hard, and went inside.

. . .

The place obviously hadn't been inhabited in years. A thick layer of dust covered every surface, and the light from the windows was dimmed by grime and cobwebs.  
Moving cautiously, I began to explore the halls. I sighed with relief when I happened upon the library almost immediately. As I stepped over to the shelves, my blood froze. I heard a sound from down the hall. A child's giggle.

Stepping silently, I moved down the hall, almost afraid to breathe. I approached a partially ajar door, which was the only one the sound could have come from. Steeling my nerve, I threw the door open.

The room was a nursery. Toys and storybooks were spread out on the floor. A token effort to get some of them on the shelves and in a chest had been made, but for the most part things had been left where they were last used.

A small bed was unmade on one side of the room. The tidiest area was a thick rug in the corner covered in loose white animal hair.  
Like the rest of the house, everything in this room had a thick layer of dust indicating nothing had been touched in years. There was no sign of what had made the noise.

"Spooky old house, and you're hearing things," I told myself, not entirely convinced.

When the fear started to ebb, I looked over the room again. This room must've belonged to the girl in the story. A vague sadness who's origin was far from supernatural passed over me, and I solemnly closed the door. I returned to the library and got to work preparing my study space. I cleaned the windows and tables, swept the floor, and dusted the bookshelves.

Unlike the Aquroya library, this was one that had been assembled and maintained by a genuine State Alchemist. There were solid research materials on dozens of advanced concepts I'd only read about in passing. In no time at all, I'd forgotten my creepy setting and was happily devouring this new knowledge.

. . .

So wrapped up was I in my studies I didn't realize how late it had gotten until the sun had nearly set. It was only when I found myself wondering where to find a candle that I started to reconsider how late at night I really wanted to still be here.

Careful to close up behind me, I exited the estate, hopped the fence, and found a hotel.

The next day, I decided this wasn't a pattern I could sustain for a month and a half. I canvased the shops just as they were opening and gathered the materials I wold be needing, then I returned to the Tucker estate.

"What's in the bags?" asked Melvin.

"Sleeping mat, some battery operated lamps, some food-"

"Are you moving in?" asked Frank incredulously.

"Pretty much. Studying for this exam is going to me a lot of late nights, and since no one's living there, I might as well sleep there."

"Do you think that's safe?" asked Melvin.

"Why wouldn't it be?" retorted Ken. "The ghost?"

"Did you see anything yesterday?" asked frank.

Thinking back on that odd noise, I again dismissed it as my imagination. "No."

"Speaking of which," interjected Melvin, "I've been doing some research on the house. Whatever happened, the military has sealed all the records."

"Why would they do that?" I asked. "Trying to save face by not admitting one of their State Alchemists went crazy?"

"Could be," said Melvin, "but everyone I talked to seemed to think it was something to do with his research."

"What was he studying?"

"Chimeras," responded Melvin. "Shou Tucker, the Sewing Life Alchemist, was one of the military's foremost experts on the subject."

Thinking back on the creepy giggle from yesterday, I was suddenly not so sure staying here was such a good idea.

"But the military did take all his projects somewhere else, right?" I asked. "They wouldn't have just left one in the house, right?"

"You did see something!" accused Frank.

"More like heard something. And I could've just imagined it. But still..."

"But if there's a chance that a rogue military chimera's running around in there," replied Ken, his skepticism vanishing in the face of an explanation that fit his worldview, "you're going to need some backup."

Frank looked at the house, seemed ready to object, then set his jaw and nodded. Melvin paled slightly, but didn't hesitate.

"I guess we should get used to working together," said Melvin. "Once you pass the exam, we'll be under the same command. What's the plan?"

"Why are you asking me?" I said. "You guys are the ones with military experience."

Melvin replied. "All State Alchemists enter the service at the rank of Major."

"Since we're not waiting until the test to make it official before our first mission together," added Frank, "there's no point waiting for the test before we sort out the chain of command."

"Alright," I said, only now realizing how much my life would change if I continued to pursue State Alchemist certification. "Are you armed?"

"Sidearms," reported Ken.

"They don't let us wander around with heavier ordinance," added Mevin.

"Okay. I'll open the Gate. Everyone stay together. It's probably nothing, but if there is something in there, let's not give it a chance to puck us off on our own."

The trio nodded, drew guns, and fell in to formation right in front of the gate. After hopping the fence and letting them in, we proceeded into the building. I took the lead, holding up one of my newly purchased lamps.

Three rooms into our sweep, Melvin let out a startled cry. In an instant, Frank and Ken whipped around to the direction he was facing. I turned and saw him batting at his face.

"Get it off!" he wailed.

A quick glance showed only an ordinary cobweb tangled in with his glasses and hair. A small spider on the floor scurried away.

"It's okay," I told him as I started to wipe away the web, "it's gone." With that I pointed to the spider and the other men relaxed.

Two halls later, Melvin signaled a much calmer halt.

"Hold up," he said, keeping his voice low. "See that door? It's been reinforced."

"So?" asked Ken.

"So," I replied, "That means it probably leads to a lab. Quiets outside disturbances, and if something goes wrong, it keeps the whole house from going up."  
"And keeps the creatures inside," added Frank with a nervous gulp.

"On three," I said, moving to the side of the door. "One... Two..." I threw the door open, calling "Three!"

No shots were fired, but all three men started into the workspace suspiciously and didn't lower their guns. I peeked through the doorway and saw a dark, deeply shadowed lab. Transmutation circles were scrawled on the walls and a handful of empty cages sat near indents, indicating many more had once been present. Filing cabinets and desk drawers were open and obviously empty. No notebooks or paper remained, but small cans of paint and bits of chalk were strewn about.

There was no sign of anything living, but the room had quite a few places to hide. As we began to search the room, my eye was drawn to a partially obliterated transmutation circle haphazardly painted on the floor in one corner.

"What've you got?" asked Ken.

"I'm not sure," I admitted. "It looks like someone took a sledge hammer to the floor this array was printed on. It's a chimera array, but it's a lot cruder than I would expect from a State Alchemist specializing in the subject."

"Can you make out what he was fusing together?" asked Melvin.

"That's a little trickier," I replied as I examined the damaged array more closely. "There was definitely a dog involved. The other creature, I'm not so sure of. Something about these body components looks familiar but I can't place it."

"We're clear," announced Frank.

With that, we left the lab and continued our search of the house. Aside from numerous signs of the estate's former inhabitants, we turned up nothing of interest.  
"Guess we wasted our time," I apologized when we were through.

"We did manage to confirm the place is safe," offered Melvin.

"Except for the ghost," teased Ken. "Everyone knows ghosts never come out when a bunch of people can see them."

"Give it a rest, Ken," scolded Frank.

"Anyway, I said, "thanks for your help."

We parted ways, and I took my things inside. Now that I no longer had to worry about a rogue chimera eating my face while I slept, I could finally concentrate on my studies.

. . .

The next few weeks were spent in laborious study. The others stopped by to check on me regularly, and dragged me away from my books whenever they felt I was looking too frazzled. I hadn't really expected to go over the entire library before the exam, but somehow the mere presence of all those books gave me the distinct impression of falling behind and needing to catch up.

One late night, just after I'd decided to get some sleep so my eyes would stop burning, I heard a voice from elsewhere in the house. It was small and distant, but just when I was ready to put it down to my imagination, it came again.

"Awexandew."

Someone was in the house calling out a name. I again crept out of the library, the arrays on my shoes preventing the floorboards from creaking. The voice called again and again. As I got closer to its source, my ears started playing tricks on me. One call would clearly be coming from one room, I would look inside, then hear the call repeat from another nearby.

Sure I'd pinned it down this time, I opened another door, and found nothing. Then, I felt a tugging on the hem of my shirt.

"Excuse me, mistew."

I jumped, my heart pounding. Melvin's ghost story racing through my mind. I fell to the floor, my back to a wall, throwing my arms out protectively. From my vantage point, I was now looking up at a slightly confused little girl. She had brown hair braided into two tails, and wore a pink shirt under a blue denim overall-skirt.

"Pwease Mistew, can you hewp me?"

I shook my head to myself. There were no such things as ghosts. This kid was flesh and blood, same as me. I stood up and offered my hand.

"Of course I'll help you. What's wrong?" She took my hand and shook it gravely. I was more relieved than I should have been when I found it both solid and warm.

"I'm wooking fow Awexandew."

"Alexander?" I asked. "Is he your brother?"

The girl giggled slightly and replied, "No, siwy. Awexandew is my dog."

"I see. I'm Marcus. What's your name?"

"Nina."

"Nina, do your mommy and daddy know you're here?"

She looked guilty.

"Nina, you know how worried you got when you couldn't find Alexander?"

She nodded and didn't make eye contact.

"Well that's how your parents feel when they don't know where you are. I think we should get you home."

"But Awexandew doesn't know whewe we awe!" she blurted out. "Daddy said we had to move away and we weft weally fast. Awexandew wasn't thewe when we weft. I know whewe we'we staying, but Awexandew couwdn't find us even if he knew we moved, and he doesn't. Besides, you pwomised!"

She'd caught me. I did promise I'd help her look for Alexander. I signed and acquiesced.

"Okay. I'll help you look for a little while, but you have to stay close by, and when I say we're done, that's it and no arguments."

Nina thought on my offer for a few moments, clearly weighing my current offer against the possibility of getting more out of me. When she made up her mind, she cheerfully replied, "Okay."

My lamp eased our search though the dark house considerably. True to her word, Nina always stayed within arm's reach as we searched. We covered most of the house, but for some reason, I found myself repeatedly putting off looking in the lab. At length, it was the last room, and I could put it off no longer.

When I led the way there, Nina pressed against me and hid behind me. This whole spooky house, and she'd never once seemed frightened, but something about this room had her spooked. I put my hand on her head.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know," she said. "Thewe's something scawy in thewe."

"Did you look here before we met?" I guessed.

She shook her head. "I don't know what's down thewe, but it scawes me."

I nodded. "It's okay. You can wait here and I'll check inside."

She seemed reluctant to let go of my pantleg, as though trying to keep me from going down there and facing whatever was in the lab. Her fear was contageous, and I couldn't shake the feeling that she knew something I didn't.

The lab was as empty as the last time, and I ran up to tell Nina. A bit quicker than I would have if I hadn't been worked up and jittery.

"We looked in every room, Nina. Alexander isn't here. It's time for you to go home."

Looking disappointed, she nodded with tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"I'll tell you what," I offered. "I'll keep an eye out for Alexander, and if I find him, I'll bring him to you."

Nina brightened immediately.

"One thing that's been bothering me. Why did you think Alexander would be here to begin with?"

"This is whewe we used to wive. Thank you fow youw hewp. Goodbye."

With that, Nina ran off through a solid wall, leaving me to collapse to the floor in shock. She used to live here.

Then something else clicked, and I felt physically ill. I realized why the body components on that array looked familiar. They were fractional, but ultimately the same ones I'd read in that text on human Alchemy. That was how he'd murdered his daughter, and that was why Nina couldn't find her dog.

I considered asking Melvin the name of the murdered girl the next day, but I was pretty sure I knew. I dragged myself down the hall, collapsed on my sleeping mat, and cried myself to sleep.

. . .

When the day of the exam arrived, I felt completely unprepared. I'd learned a lot studying at the old Tucker estate, but the main lesson had been how much more there was to learn. I hadn't relayed my encounter with the ghost. It would only spook Frank and annoy Ken. In the intervening weeks, I'd almost gotten to the point of dismissing the whole episode as a dream. Nina had left no evidence of her passage. Not even footprints in the dust.

Frank, Melvin, and Ken led me to the government building where the written portion of the test would be administered. Three hours later, I stepped out of the building, completely drained and demoralized.

"How'd it go?" asked Frank optimistically.

"I barely understood half the questions on that thing," I admitted, sagging. "And even if I had known what they were talking about, the time limit was brutal."

"Well, don't feel so bad," said Frank as he placed an arm around my shoulder. "There's always next year."

"True," added Melvin. "It's not as though failing once stamps you for life. Plenty of State Alchemists took the test two or three times before passing."

I tried to relax and look cheerful, if only to get the others to stop cheering me up.

"Don't you think you're getting a little ahead of yourselves?" asked Ken. "I mean, none of us has ever taken the test, so how would we know what's good or bad? I say we wait and see what the results are before making plans for a retest."

"You know what," said Frank, jostling me cheerfully. "Ken's right. We can't have you being down on yourself. Tomorrow we'll take you to see the Colnel, and when he tells you you've passed, you'll need to be ready with what to say in the interview."

"Frank," started Ken, "I didn't say he'd definitely passed. I just said-"

"It's okay, Ken," interrupted Melvin as Frank continued to drag me off. "I don't think he's listening anyway. Besides, if he passed, he'll need to be ready for the interview anyway, and if he failed, it won't matter either way."

. . .

"Your test scores indicate a satisfactory understanding of alchemic theory." The Swarm Alchemist wasn't one for sentiment. He reported my having passed the test with the same tone he used in every situation. Even, clipped, and unless it was my imagination, slight annoyance. "You will be interviewed by Fuhrer Hakuro this afternoon. Assuming you are still in the running after that point, the practical portion will be held the following morning."

"Can you give me any advice on the next portions, sir?"

"Speak honestly during the interview phase. If you are found to have lied during it, there will be repercussions. As to the practical portion, understand your audience. You don't have any groundbreaking research to share, so your goal will be to demonstrate your capabilities to the Fuhrer and the assembled generals. They will be looking for skills that will be of use in a military role. Direct combat ability is preferred, but capabilities with applications in logistics or intelligence gathering may also impress them. Finally, remember that only one of the alchemists taking the test can be granted the status of State Alchemist. The others taking the test with you are your competition."

. . .

When I entered the interview room, I was shocked to find a single three legged chair situated in the center of an impossibly sophisticated transmutation circle. The array was active, and without time to study it, it was impossible to know what it did.

Three men were seated at a table opposite the chair. Fuhrer Hakuro was seated in the middle position.

I bowed to the assembled group and sat down in the three legged chair that was obviously meant for me. The fuhrer raised an eyebrow and the generals whispered amongst themselves. I was about to apologize for whatever I'd done wrong when the Fuhrer spoke.

"Why do you want to become a State Alchemist?"

"Sir," I began with my prepared statement, "I originally hail from a small settlement that's suffered greatly at the hands of rogue alchemists. We had no idea how to defend ourselves. If it was not for the intervention of a State Alchemist, I would, even now, be unknowingly in the clutches of a dangerous mad man.

"Since that day, I have dedicated myself to the study of alchemy. I just want a chance to prove myself."

. . .

My nerves were a wreak when I arrived at the testing grounds for the practical portion of the exam. I'd wracked my brain all night for some idea of what I could do to impress the generals, and I'd come up empty. I just had to hope inspiration would strike me when I arrived.

Trees and stones, ponds and grass had all been transported into a part of the parade grounds. All gathered as material for our transmutations.

My competition wasted no time. The first alchemist approached one of the large stones and began tracing a large and complex array around its base. When he activated the array, the entire four story tall rock began to distort and twist. The light of the transmutation dimmed, and a massive ironclad battleship, complete with cannons had appeared in the middle of the testing area.

"It's not a bad effort," noted Fuhrer Hakuro, "but he's spent. A State Alchemist needs to exercise better judgement and not blow all his energy in a single transmutation."

Looking over at the young man, I could see what the Fuhrer was talking about. He'd collapsed into a sitting position, breathing hard and leaning against the side of the ship. The next alchemist gathered up a variety of materials. Trees, water, stones were all dragged over to where he'd traced his circle. In a flash, a dozen small balloons rose up, each carrying a metal object with an aerodynamic shape. With a theatrical flourish, he tugged on one of the strings and one of these objects was released from its balloon. When it hit the ground, it exploded with a deafening blast.

He'd transmuted a high explosive out of the trace materials in the stones and the plant matter, and wrapped it in a standard style bomb casing. Then he'd suspended each from a medium sized hydrogen balloon. The Fuhrer was impressed, and so was I. This definitely had military applications.

The next alchemist wore a ring with a pre-made transmutation circle on it. He'd waited while the others showed off their alchemy, until he had the full attention of the judges. He raised his fist above his head triumphantly and punched the ground. When his fist struck, the ground beneath our feet rumbled, and a crack opened in the earth within the proving grounds.

"An impressive display," noted the Fuhrer. "A mass-area effecting attack. No time wasted drawing transmutation circles. Al the Earthquake Alchemist has a nice ring to it."

At that point, a series of explosions rocked the field. The fissure opened wider and the ground shook even more violently than before. I immediately looked over at the alchemist, but he was staring at his ring and sweating profusely. I realized what had happened a split second before the Fuhrer called it out.

"That idiot ruptured a gas line! We have to get out of here!"

The one who had triggered this wasted no time fleeing the scene. I was about to run myself when I saw the first alchemist who had performed. The fissure had opened a wide chasm between where he sat, exhausted under his battleship, and any possible means of escaping the area.

Worse, one of the bombs the second alchemist had transmuted was floating in his direction. The man bust have lost control of them during the explosion. The bomb struck one of the heavy turrets directly above the trapped man. The support structure had been damaged, and it was only a matter of time before it came lose and crushed the helpless alchemist. Assuming one of the other bombs or the gas explosion didn't get him first.

I didn't have much time. I kicked over a nearby tree, severing it cleanly from its roots with a simple transmutation. Then I hopped up on top of the fallen log and began to run. When each step came down, I transmuted the surface I was running on, stretching out the material in front of me, and rearranging the carbon in it into a crustal lattice that would be able to support considerable weight.

Halfway across the chasm, the man pointed up and called, "Look out!" One of the bombs was directly overhead when the supporting balloon burst.

Without missing a step, I turned some of the bridge material into a cylinder, which protected me from the blast. Unfortunately, there wasn't much material left. It was going to be close from the start, but now there was no chance of making the bridge reach him, and no time to stop and revert the cylinder.

I kept moving, determined to get as close as I could. The turret came lose just as I reached the end of my partial bridge. With the aid of my automail, I cleared the inhuman distance remaining in a single bound.

Knowing there would be no time when I arrived, I instead threw my feet out ahead of me. My shoes contacted the ship a split-second before the turret crushed us both. The alchemy activated and a section of metal from the hull shot down and out at a fourty-five degree angle. The turret glanced off the makeshift shelter and fell into the pit. The other alchemist had sketched a circle in the dirt, but hadn't had the energy to activate it. As the fireball from the gas explosion rushed up, I took a chance and activated the array myself. We rode out the rest of the exam in a ceramic and metal sphere.

. . .

The Swarm Alchemist handed me a letter. The markings indicated it was from the desk of the Fuhrer. The Colonel silently attended to his own paperwork as I read.  
"Iron Sole?" I asked when I'd finished.

Looking up from his paperwork, the Colonel adjusted his glasses and responded. "It has been traditional, since before the death of King Bradley, for State Alchemists to be given symbolic second names. Official military correspondences will refer to you as the Iron Sole Alchemist."

Noting that I had finished reading the letter, he opened his desk drawer and produced a silver pocketwatch, engraved with the state's crest. Handing it over to me, he begin his explanations.

"This watch is your identification. Present it at any military checkpoint and you will be recognized as a State Alchemist. Do not lose it, as you will not be issued a replacement."

"Sir, is it true that these watches enhance alchemic ability?"

"No. That is a myth perpetuated with the military's approval intended to misinform and confuse the enemy as to the true nature and extent of our abilities. You will have to continue relying on your own ability for the foreseeable future.

Containing my disappointment, I replied simply, "Yes, sir."

"You are now officially under my command. While the official dress code is relaxed somewhat for State Alchemists, unless there is a pressing need otherwise, I expect you to be in uniform at all times.

"You are to report back to me at 0800 for your first assignment. You have leave until then. Dismissed."

. . .

Author's comments:  
And the titular Iron Sole Alchemist finally makes his debut thanks to a half-accidental good deed back in Liore. The story will start picking up with that first mission, even if it might not seem like it at first.


	5. The Walking Dead

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 5) The walking dead.  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

"Did the Colonel get all emotional?" asked frank when I emerged from the office.

"I'll just bet he launched into one of his famous, flowery speeches," said Melvin.

The trio then burst out laughing.

"Even if the Colonel will never say it," said Ken, "we will. Congratulations on becoming a state Alchemist. We always believed in you."

After relating the Colonel's words, the men took me to get fitted for my uniform. I had to admit, the blue and gold uniform looked good. The only concession to my personal style was the black boots bearing my increasingly complicated transmutation circles. I'd been issued a sidearm, which I wore at my hip, and I acquired a second to fill the concealed leg holster in my automail. A few invisible alterations to the pant leg and I'd be able to access the weapon at a moment's notice.

When the preliminaries were out of the way, I set out for the library, and the research notes Psiren had promised may hold the key to restoring my leg to flesh and blood.

. . .

"What do you mean 'the records have been sealed'"?"

"Just what I said, sir," responded the librarian apologetically. "All research materials and mission reports from the Fullmetal Alchemist have been classified."

"But I'm a State Alchemist," I argued, producing my watch. "That has to count for something."

"That watch got you access to the library and its research materials, but Fullmetal's records were sealed by the Fuhrer himself. There's nothing I can do."

"Wait, Fuhrer Hakuro sealed the records?"

"No, Fuhrer Bradley did. It was one of his final orders prior to his death."

"I see," I replied. I was more sure than ever that something important was in those notes, but accessing them seemed a lost cause.

. . .

"I didn't know the records were that classified," apologized Frank. "What do you suppose is in there that'd have the higher ups so spooked?"

"I'll bet it has to do with what happened in Liore," said Melvin. "Fullmetal defected right around the time the Alchemic explosion hit.

"Speaking of which," Ken added. "Do you have any idea what caused that? You must have some theory."

"It wasn't Fullmetal," I snapped more defensively than I should. Controlling my tone, I continued. "There was another alchemist in the city. He had red eyes and a cross-shaped scar on his face. He talked about using the array around the city to create the Philosopher's Stone."

"The Philosopher's Stone?" exclaimed Melvin. "This other alchemist knew how to create the stone?"

"Who knows if he had the right idea. All I know is he used the array around the city to deconstruct all the people inside."

"Wait," said Ken. "Cross-shaped scar?"

"That's right."

"There was a serial killer active in Central a while back. Only targeted State Alchemists. He supposedly had a scar like that."

"If Fullmetal figured out how that city-destroying array worked," said Frank, "I can see why they'd classify that."

"The bit about the stone fits surprisingly well," added Melvin. "Fullmetal was a well known stone-seeker."

"But without those notes," I lamented, "There's no way to know if what happened in Liore was really related to the Stone or if the scarred alchemist was just crazy."

"I have a thought," suggested Ken. "Fullmetal's notes and mission reports are classified, but what about his other records? Expense reports, exam results, annual supervisor assessments. It may give you someplace to start."

Ken's idea made sense, but it would have to wait. I had a meeting the next morning with the Swarm Alchemist, and not knowing this mission he had in mind, I decided it was best that I be as well rested and prepared as possible.

. . .

"Your test results indicate a solid understanding of organic alchemy, particularly chimeras."

"I've studied the subject," I replied trying my best not to reveal anything about the nature of my intent.

"When Sewing Life Alchemist Shao Tucker was discharged from the military, a great deal of research material was left behind. You are to familiarize yourself with his research and prepare a report."

"You want me to continue that psycho's work?" I demanded.

"Your orders," the Swarm Alchemist emphasized, "are to review the research materials of the Sewing Life Alchemist and report on your findings. The last alchemist assigned to this task was allowed to shirk his responsibility. You will not."

"Last alchemist?" I asked.

"Edward Elric," replied the Swarm Alchemist with more disgust in his voice than usual. "Certified an alchemic genius when he passed the State Alchemy exam at the age of twelve, reviewing the research of other alchemists was beneath him. His refusal to put in the time and effort performing necessary grunt work like this is the reason you and others have to pick up the slack."

The plan was to retrace Edward's career path, so I could hardly refuse. Not that the Colonel would take 'no' for an answer. Besides, I wanted to figure out human transmutation, and I knew Tucker had transmuted a human at least once. Of course, going over the details was going to be emotionally difficult.

Without enthusiasm, I said, "Yes sir," and left the Colonel's office.

. . .

I was led into a dark basement storage area. The place smelled as though something died in here, and looking at some of the cages it would seem that was literally what had happened. Cages and bell jars covered this entire part of the storage room, each containing a dead chimera.

I was about to be sick to my stomach when I heard a whimper from one of the cages in the far back. I rounded on the soldier who'd led me here.

"How many of these were still alive when they were taken into custody?" I demanded.

"About half of them. Most died within the first few days, most of the rest in a couple of weeks. We think there was some sort of dietary problem."

Promising myself I'd tear into someone about the conditions here later, I rushed over to the cage I'd heard the whimpering from. I saw, and toppled over backward in terror.

The creature was built like a combination of lion and wolf, with heavy jaws and a full mane. It's body was covered in this scales and it had a thick reptilian tail. It reminded me strongly of the chimeras from Liore.

"Are there any other survivors?" I asked weakly without getting up.

"This is the only one. to be honest, we thought it was dead a couple times too. Then we'd come back and see some of its food gone."

"It was probably hibernating," I guessed. "It was probably designed to be put into storage for prolonged periods of time."

A closer look at the chimera told me that however long it had survived, the creature was very far from being in good health.

"I want this chimera and all the research notes brought up to the lab," I ordered. "I'll go over the corpses one-by-one at a later date."

. . .

My first priority was this chimera. Tucker's research notes were of very little help. His documentation was slipshod and incomplete at the best of times, and there was a distinct trend to move from one experiment to the next as the mood struck him, rather than carefully going over his results thus far.

Instead, I was forced to take the route of direct examination. The chimera was surprisingly docile throughout my examinations, wincing in pain on more than one occasion, but never responding aggressively. I think it understood I was trying to help.

When I'd completed my analysis, I was left wondering how Shao Tucker had become a State Alchemist in the first place. The creature's joints had deteriorated quickly, and its heartbeat and breathing were both labored. There were muscles in the thing's body that weren't attached anywhere near joints, and worse, pinched nerves throughout its structure were causing it constant pain, and likely had been since its initial transmutation.

Some fairly advanced concepts had been integrated into its design, but there were also glaring oversights that had been pointed out and warned about in my introductory chimera text. Every indication in this poor creature spoke of an alchemist trying to run before he could walk.

I had to admire the willpower this chimera must have to keep going, day-by-day in such a state. I promised him that it would all be better soon, then began designing a series of transmutation arrays.

It was painfully slow going, coming to understand what had initially been done, even as the poor creature continued to suffer, but he'd been created by a slipshod alchemist in too much of a rush to understand what he was doing, and I'd be damned if I increased his suffering by making the same mistake.

. . .

I labored for the better part of three months on the project. Along the way, I had tucker's library transferred to my workspace, and I dissected the dead chimeras, looking for clues as to precisely what Tucker had done, and what he'd tried to do.

"Are you ready, Loki?" No name had been entered into the records regarding the chimera, so I'd taken to using the name of the mythical shapeshifter.

Loki weakly lifted his head and struggled to his feet. I let him lean on me as he limped over to the transmutation circle scribed in an open space in the lab.  
"It's okay, you can lay down now."

Loki collapsed in the center of the circle without pre-emble. I'd dispensed with the cage early on. He'd shown no signs of hostility despite his fierce appearance, and even if he'd wanted to hurt me, he was too sick and weak to do the job. Hopefully this transmutation would fix that second part.

Moment of truth. I delicately placed my hands on the array, and felt the energy begin to circulate. Bathed in golden light, Loki's body began ot shift subtly. Joints thickened. Muscles shifted position beneath the skin. His labored breathing eased, and his ears perked up.

The light of the transmutation faded, and Loki leapt to his feet, which still sported long, reptilian claws. With energy born of freshly vanished pain, Loki leapt at me, pinning me to the ground in a motion so swift, it scarcely had time to register before it'd happened. The moment of terror subsided as he gratefully licked my face.

"Okay, boy," I said, trying without success to shove the three hundred pound chimera off me. "I'm glad you're feeling better, but if you want to stay that way, you need to get off me."

I struggled for a moment more before giving up and returning the grateful chimera's affections. After a while, he got the message and got off me without me needing to resort to anything drastic.

Loki was feeling better than he had since his initial transformation, but even with my corrections, this form was never built to last. It was all speed and power, with no endurance or longevity. Eventually, all that power and mass would wear down even the newly reinforced joints I'd given him, and even the larger, stronger heart and lungs wouldn't last supporting him. He had all the corrections to Tucker's plans integrated, but Tucker was trying to create a war machine, and nothing more.

The easy part done, I sat Loki down and started the next stage. Tucker's notes weren't my only resource. I set to work placing on Loki's body, beneath the fur and scales, a far more sophisticated array based on some of the things I'd read in the folio of letters from Aquaroya.

. . .

My friends greeted me as I entered the command post carrying my report for the Colonel. A medium-sized brown dog with floppy ears and a wagging tail trotted along behind me.

"When did you get a dog?" asked Frank.

"What?" I asked in mock hurt. "Don't you recognize Loki?"

"That's the chimera you've been working on?" asked Melvin skeptically.

"Wasn't that chimera about two hundred pounds heavier and with a lot sharper claws?" noted Ken as he tousled the dog's ears.

"Most of his brain was originally from a dog, so I thought he'd be more comfortable like this."

"Wait, you're serious?" asked Ken as he stopped petting Loki to stare at him.

"You guys wait out here and get re-acquainted. I have a report Colonel Swarms been waiting for."

. . .

"Human Transmutation?"

"That is my assessment, sir. The Sewing Life Alchemist had neither the talent, nor the dedication to produce something like a talking chimera through conventional means. What he did have was a distinct lack of ethical standards and a willingness to take shortcuts."

"I see. Your report on the progress of his research during his time as an official member of the State Military has been quite thorough. Your analysis of the circumstances surrounding his State Alchemist credentials are mostly speculation, but well reasoned speculation. This report should be of use to future alchemists interested in the work of the Sewing Life Alchemist. I'd like you to have it filed in the library's main archives."

That was surprising. I'd run into roadblocks and walls of classification when I requested records relating to Tucker's discharge. It looked like someone was trying to cover up the Sewing Life Alchemist's crimes. In my report, I'd gone into great detail the evidence that Shao Tucker had turned his daughter into a chimera. As a result, I didn't expect the report to end up someplace any State Alchemist could read it.

"Is something wrong?" inquired the Swarm Alchemist.

"No, sir," I replied, suddenly fearful that he would change his mind.

. . .

I grabbed copies of Fullmetal's nonclassified records when I dropped off my report. Until I received new orders, I was free to pursue my own research.

As Ken had suspected, these records were enough to divine every city Edward Elric had visited throughout his career. Two places in particular stood out. The first and most striking was Risenbool. More than half the letters in my folio were addressed to a man named Hohenheim in that city. It was listed as Edward's home town.

The second was a small town Edward and his brother had unofficially stopped off once. It was also home to a name from the letters. Al alchemist named Majahal.  
Risenbool may have been the more promising place to start, but it was a good deal farther away. The other town was just a short train ride away, close enough to be there and back before anyone in Central needed me.

. . .

I flashed my pocketwatch to the train staff to get Loki aboard with me. There were some definite advantages to being a State Alchemist. It was nice ot have a companion on this trip that I didn't have to worry about judging me for my research into human alchemy. Much as I liked Melvin, Frank, and Ken, I didn't feel comfortable discussing my ultimate goals with them.

The train pulled to a stop, and we disembarked. It was early morning, and the town had a sort of sleepy quality to it. I stopped the first person I saw.

"Excuse me. Do you know where I can find an alchemist named Majahal?"

Looking over my blue uniform, the young woman's face twisted into a mocking grin. "Take a left on this next street, then follow it all the way to the end."

Uncertain, I followed the girl's directions, Loki trotting along happily at my side. When we arrived, I understood the grin. I'd been directed to a graveyard.

. . .

Asking around town confirmed m suspicions. Majahal had died right around the time Edward Elric had come to visit. Of a sword wound to the chest.

I had come hoping to speak with an expert on human transmutation but that obviously wouldn't be possible now. I asked about his effects, and was informed that an old friend of his named Lebi had moved into his home.

. . .

Loki started sniffing the air curiously as we approached Majahal's former residence. It was out of the way, and was surrounded on all sides by what had once been well kept flower gardens. I knocked at the door and was greeted by a middle aged woman wearing a blue rose, obviously from the overgrown garden, in her hair and wearing a striking red pendant.

"Can I help you, young man?" she asked nervously through the only partially opened door.

"I hope so," I replied. "I was informed that an alchemist named Majahal used to live here. May I come in?"

The woman shot a questioning look over her shoulder before opening the door. "Of course, we can't have you standing outside all day and catch cold. Can I get you some tea?"

Loki bolted inside before me and let out a muted "whuf" before standing in the empty corner Lebi had glanced at a moment ago and started sniffing the wall and floor.  
"Loki! Behave yourself." I scolded, and the dog padded back over to me with one last glance at the corner. "Tea would be lovely ma'am."

After we sat down for tea, Lebi told me the story of what had happened when the Fullmetal Alchemist had come to town. I learned that her real name was Karin. I learned that Majahal had thought her dead, and when he couldn't bring her back, had started abducting local girls to bind their souls to dolls he made in her image. And she told me about how he had died accidentally when Edward Elric had been trying to disarm him.

"He was a brilliant man. I'm sure that if I'd actually been dead, he would have succeeded in bringing me back."

"I'd like to go over his notes," I broached the topic. "I'm sure his research has a lot to teach us."

"I did keep some of his things. I'm sure I could arrange for you to see them."

"I would appreciate that. By the way," I changed the subject, "that garden outside. I'd assumed it had belonged to Majahal, but after your story, I'm not so sure."

"Oh, yes. I planted that garden when I moved in here. Unfortunately, I'm getting on in years, and don't have the energy to tend it like I used to."

"It must be difficult," I said, finishing my tea, "being forced to give up something you love so much."

"Yes, but I find other ways to occupy my time."

That was the last thing I remember her saying. She watched nervously as I topped out of my chair, and I heard a yelp from the other side. Then, it all went black.

. . .

"Are you sure this is a good idea? He isn't like the others. He's a State Alchemist. Someone will miss him."

"If we just let him snoop around as he pleased, he'd figure it all out. Is that what you want?"

My vision swam as I opened my eyes. I was in a windowless room, probably a basement. There was a smell of decay and purification that nearly had be gagging. I was tied to a chair, and could see my sidearm, boots, and pocketwatch sitting on the table. Wooden mannequins lined the walls, each slender and featureless, resembling nothing so much as skeletons. My chair sat in the middle of a transmutation circle to complicated to analyze just now.

Karin stood across the room. She was wringing her hands nervously, and frequently glancing back my way. She was talking to a little girl.

The girl looked about four, but her tone of voice and the way she carried herself suggested someone older. She had pale skin, dark violet eyes, and jet black hair worn in two braids. She wore a black overall-dress, with no shirt underneath, and most strangely no shoes. She had some sort of black cloth covering the tops of her feet, but the toes and soles were obviously bare. A tattoo of the oroboros, a serpent devouring its own tail, appeared on her exposed back near the right shoulder.

Loki was nowhere in sight.

Trying not to let on that I'd regained consciousness, I started to scrape the metal toe of my automail leg along the wood floor beneath my chair.

"Just perform the soul attachment. You can dump the body with a bullet in the brain, and the military will just think it was rebels."

"But-"

"You know," added the girl, interrupting Karin's objection, "now that I think of it, wasn't Majahal also an alchemist? Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out all this time what we needed was an alchemist's soul?"

Karin swallowed her objection and fetched a mannequin from the shelf. I waited as she approached, and when she was leaning over me, I activated the crude circle I'd drawn with my toe. Arcs of gold lightning accompanied the transmutation that freed me from my bonds.

I took advantage of her moment of surprise, and wrapped the ropes that had previously held me around her and the mannequin. I didn't have time to severely tie her, but I could tangle her up and prevent her from giving chase.

The girl and I raced for the table containing my things. I was slightly closer, with a longer stride and a good automail leg helping out. But I was still feeling the effects of the drug, and she was incredibly fast.

She reached the table first, and drove me back with a hail of bullets from my own gun. Her fire wasn't very accurate, but at this range, I was still lucky not to get hit before I overturned another table to hide behind.

A surge of red light caught out of the corner of my eye drew my attention, as Karin stepped over the neatly coiled rope at her feet and began moving towards me.

"Forget the soul attachment!" screamed the girl. "Just kill him before he ruins everything!"

Karin reached over to a nearby table and grabbed a brass oil lantern. As she touched it, red light arced out from her hand, and the lantern became a flamethrower.

"No circle," I gasped in astonishment before the mortal peril I was in brought be back to my senses. She'd also blatantly violated the law of equivalent exchange, since there was nowhere near enough mass in that lantern.

Karin pulled the rigger, and let out a jet of flame in my general direction. It went high, setting some of the rafters alight. She wasted no time walking the stream of fire down towards me.

Dominik saved my life that day. With a quick motion, I popped open the concealed panel on my automail leg, and drew my backup pistol. Scarcely thinking, I snapped a shot in Karin's general direction. The bullet hit the fuel tank on her flamethrower, which exploded violently.

Karin screamed in agony, engulfed in flames, as all around, the fire spread. Papers ignited. Tables caught. Mannequins began to go up.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I yelled, as I grabbed a carving tool and quickly scratched a transmutation circle onto the wooden floor. I should have been worried about burning to death in the fire, or choking on the smoke, but at that moment, the only thing I could think of was all the knowledge that would be lost if this laboratory burned down.

The array activated, and in an instant, the entire room was covered in a thin layer of frost, extinguishing the flames.

A rattling sound came from the other side of the table, as the girl discarded my empty gun.

Seizing the opportunity, I hopped my overturned table and rushed at the girl. A smile played on her lips that may have been insanity or may have been bravado as she retreated backwards from my charge. This was a small room, and it didn't take long before her back was against a wall.

"Now, you're going to answer one important question," I growled as I loomed over her.

"Let me guess," she mocked. "What's going on here? Who else is involved?"

I discharged my gun harmlessly into the wall beside her to emphasize my point.

"Where is Loki?"

"Your mutt?" she asked, never flinching or letting up with her mocking tone. "After we hit him over the head, we dumped him outside.

I was about to ask another question when another burst of red light came from the direction of Karin's injured form. The girl punched me in the stomach as I looked away from her for an instant, then darted under my arm and sprinted to the other side of the room.

Karin has transmuted some handholds onto a nearby table and was screaming in a mix of rage and agony. Her pendant pulsed in time with her transmutations, and I realized what it must be.

"The Philosopher's Stone."

While I was busy being impressed, Karin grabbed what looked like a bone saw, and red arcs of alchemic light arced around it. Something went wrong, and Karin's pendant cracked. The transmutation turned back on her, and the blade's metal fused inelegantly with her already charred flesh. The limb was ruined and useless, and with one final scream, she collapsed to the ground in a puddle of her own rapidly pooling blood.

"Pathetic," said the girl. "She overtaxed the stone and killed herself. Not that she'd have lived much longer with those burns anyway. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to clean up this mess myself."

With that, the girl lifted a bar from a nearby door. It flew open of its own accord, and things shambled out. They looked human at first glance, but it didn't take long to see the crude stitches holding the putrid and rotting flesh together.

The girl laughed as I turned tail and climbed the stairs out of this place at a dead run.

"What's wrong?" she called after me, laughter in her voice. "I thought you wanted to get a good look at the results of our research."

I burst out the front door, the zombies shambling after. On the ground at the side of the door, I spotted Loki. Dropping to my knees, I pressed my ear against his flank. He was still breathing.

I couldn't drag a hundred pound dog behind me and have any hope of outrunning the creatures pursuing me. It was either leave him behind, or face the horde of undead with nothing but a backup pistol. I didn't have any choice.

Planting my feet into what I hoped was a proper marksman's stance, I interposed myself between the creatures and Loki.

When the first zombie stepped into the doorway, I squeezed off a shot to its center mass. The gunshot cracked out and seemed louder outside in the open than it had in the battle a moment ago. The shot hit, but the creature didn't seem to notice and continued forward.

"Attack!" called out the girl from behind the advancing force, and at her call, the nearest zombie lashed out at me.

It was still slow, and I was able to duck under its attack. Unfortunately, I had chosen to stand still, and more of the creatures approached, starting to encircle me.

Dodging one of the creatures was easy. Dodging three at once as it became increasingly clear with each shot that by bullets were useless on these things was much harder. A heavy blow landed off center on by back, which cost me my balance. I topped to the ground as the six creatures stumbled over eachother to finish me off.

One of the things stepped on Loki's unconscious form as it moved into position, and Loki let out a yelp of pain.

Starting to his senses, Loki saw that I was in trouble. The creatures continued to rain down blows on me, and it was all I could do to protect my head.

Loki jumped to his feet, his hackles raised. As he growled, a violet glow poured from beneath his raised fur. Grass and dirt broke down in the light, and Loki's body started to change.

Scales sprouted form beneath his fur, covering him in a mail of armor. His limbs grew longer and thicker in proportion even as his mass generally increased. Teeth and claws lengthened and sharpened, and his tail grew into a heavy cudgel.

When the light of transmutation faded, Loki again appeared as the green scaled, golden maned, three hundred pound military chimera that had gratefully tackled me the day I healed him. The difference was, this time he wasn't remotely playful.

Letting out an unnatural snarl, Loki hurled himself into the melee. With his first motion, he pinned one of the zombies under a heavy claw, and snapped a limb clean off another with his powerful jaw. For his backswing as he regained his balance form the leap, he struck a third zombie with his heavy tail, hurling the thing through the air to slam hard against the side of the house.

"Inorganic matter transmuted into organic and integrated into a pre-existing living pattern," gasped the girl, truly impressed for the first time I'd seen her, as she looked between the chimera coming to my rescue and the small crater left behind where he'd been standing.

The creatures struck Loki as they had me, but the chimera was made of tougher stuff than I was. Reinforced skeletal structure, heavy scales for deflecting blows, and a whole lot of muscle conspired to allow Loki to shrug off their attacks even as he began tearing the creatures apart.

I crawled out of the melee, and zeroed in on the girl directing everything. I again raised my gun, and yelled, "Call them off!"

"Or what?" demanded the girl. "You'll shoot a little kid? I don't think you've got what it takes, alchemist."

"You've been murdering people for God knows how long, you tried to kill me at least three times already, and you hurt my dog. I think I'll be able to live with myself. Call them off!"

"Then do it," she shot back, clearly not intimidated.

And I did. The shit rang out over the sounds of Loki keeping the zombies occupied. There was no blood, and again the girl didn't even flinch as the bullet impacted harmlessly behind her. It hadn't been a warning shot, at least not intentionally. I'd missed.

As soon as I'd reassessed the situation, the girl sprang into action, and charged at me. I shot three more times as she rushed me, to no effect.

I was stunned when she stopped inches from my body, and positioned herself such that my gun was practically against her forehead.

"Here," she said. "Since you're such a crappy shot, I'll make this easy for you."

My gun started to waver. It was one thing to attack someone at a distance in self-defense or the heat of a combat. Executing someone with a point-blank shot to the head was something else.

Before I could turn my gun away, the girl grabbed the barrel and held it in place.

"Come on, alchemist," she taunted, "you can live with yourself." When I continued to hesitate, she snapped her other hand out to mine, which was holding the gun. Her small hands had an impossibly strong grip.

The gun discharged, and the bullet cleanly impacted the dirt behind her. Its barrel hadn't moved from its position. The girl's mocking smile widened as I processed the situation. The shot hadn't missed. It couldn't have at that range. But there wasn't a mark on her. The bullet had passed through her skull like it wasn't even there. No blood on the ground.

Before I could recover form the shock, she used my arm for leverage, and hopped up. She delivered a kick to my face with way more power than should have been possible for someone her size.

Things were looking grim when Loki once again came to my rescue. Having dealt with the zombies, Loki charged the two of us, at an angle to headbutt the girl. Like with the bullet, the chimera's body passed right through her. But that didn't mean he didn't have an effect. The chimera's charge impacted me, and threw me a good distance. The force of the impact jarred me loose from the girl's grip.

Whatever this girl was, physical attacks had proven useless, and even with her zombies destroyed, if she could hit me (harder than they had) and I couldn't hit back, I was still going to loose. I decided to try and stall for time.

"Who are you?" I demanded with more than feigned desperation.

The girl grinned and took her time, obviously toying with me. "Sloth." She casually strolled in my direction as she continued speaking. "You've made quite a nuisance of yourself, alchemist."

Loki charged her again, and again passed right through. As he did, Sloth casually grabbed him by the tail and hurled the three hundred pound chimera at me. I managed to duck most of the blow, but we were both slammed against the wall of the house.

"You and your mutt both," Sloth amended. "Now, the question is, what do I do with you?"

As she slowly advanced, I didn't bother getting up from the ground. I saw a slim chance, and began to scratch a transmutation circle in the dirt, hiding it with my toppled body. Loki, meanwhile, interposed himself between Sloth and I, growling menacingly. Clearly with physical attacks not working, the chimera had switched to a psychological attack.

"I think I'll just beat you both unconscious, drag you back inside, and restart that fire. There'll be fewer lingering questions that way."

I smiled. Golden light erupted from behind me, as my completed transmutation circle did its work. The ground beneath Sloth's feet rumbled violently, and she lost her balance. I was right. Whatever trick she was using to pass through solid matter, she needed to interact with the ground to walk. Out here in the styx, I didn't have to worry about buried gas lines.

I pressed on with my transmutation, opening a pit beneath her, which she immediately fell into. Like in Liore, I smoothed and glazed the walls of her prison.

Seeing the threat passed, Loki relaxed. As he did so, the configuration of the transmutation circle tattooed on his skin changed again, and violet light again poured off the chimera. Scales and fur fell to the ground along with clumps of organic residue the same consistency as mud. When it was over, Loki was once again in the form of an ordinary dog.

"Now, the question is, what do I do with you?" I echoed back to the girl.

"Nothing," she spat. "You win this time, alchemist. I'm leaving." At that, she placed her hands on the wall of her underground cell and slowly stepped through it and out of sight.

. . .

The zombies turned out to have been the same wooden mannequins from inside with human flesh sewn onto them like a suit. I burned their remains after I completed my examination.

Inside, I found Majahal's old research notes, complete with his theories on soul attachment. Karin hadn't kept good notes. The best I was able to find was a journal. It detailed Sloth's initial appearance.

Sloth had provided her with a philosopher's stone and encouraged Karin to continue Majahal's work, only this time with the goal of resurrecting Majahal. She had started sewing flesh onto her mannequins after reflecting on Majahal's theory that his dolls were unstable due to the attached soul rejecting a body unlike its own.

Shockingly, Karin's approach apparently showed some promise. From her journal entries, it was clear that the more human tissue she added, especially from the body of the original soul donor, the longer her dolls lasted.

Karin wasn't much of an alchemist, with only the most rudimentary understanding of alchemic theory. She couldn't even activate Majahal's carefully copied arrays without the philosopher's stone Sloth had provided. Her progress had been approaching the limits of what could be learned from this trial and error approach, and Sloth had begun pushing her to try one of the older human transmutation arrays in Majahal's notes. Karin hadn't gone for it, but her journal entries indicated that her resolve was starting to waver before I arrived.

The victims had been carefully chosen at Sloth's direction. Travelers, drifters, hunters off alone. No one who would be missed, unlike Majahal's use of the local girls for his experiments.

As I finished a last once-over of the house, I discovered something in an out of the way drawer in the lab. In a small black box, there was a red stone. Smooth like glass and lacking facets, a faint crimson glow was scarcely visible radiating off it in the dark lab. Apparently Sloth had given Karin a spare philosopher's stone in case something happened to the first one. Gathering up the notebooks, journals, and of course the stone, I set the rest of the house on fire before returning to Central. I didn't want anyone else trying to follow in their footsteps, and I didn't want to leave behind clues about my own research. Sloth had been right. There would be fewer awkward questions this way.

. . .

Witnessing what happened to Karin, and reflecting on Cornello's deposement, I decided that this stone was too dangerous an item to be used casually. It would no doubt be of great use in my efforts to master human transmutation, but until I understood it better, its use would have to be restricted to critical experiments.

When I arrived back in Central, I headed in to the field office to check in.

"What happened to you?" asked Ken when I entered. I was still covered in bruises and scrapes from the battle.

"That's the last time I accept tea from a kindly old lady," I replied.

Ken blinked as I stepped past and into the Swarm Alchemist's office.

The Colonel didn't say anything about my injuries. Indeed, he cut me off from offering an explanation.

"Gather up your papers and any other experimental materials you have on hand, Iron Sole. My command has been assigned to oversee the Ishbal reconstruction. The timeframe for this mission is indeterminate, so I suggest you prepare as if this was a permanent reassignment. We will be on a train bound for East City by 0600 hours the day after tomorrow."

"I'll be ready, sir," I replied.

"Now," replied the Swarm Alchemist, "what did you originally come in here to say?"

I took a deep breath, then related my encounters with Sloth and Karin. I implied, but didn't state outright, that I hadn't been able to stop the fire, and left out my recovery of the notes and second stone, but otherwise gave an accurate report of what had transpired. When noting my reason for looking into Majahal in the first place, I offered only that I'd suspected (correctly) that he had been involved in illegal human transmutation.

No hint of expression graced the face of the Swarm Alchemist as I made my report. The fantastical elements like the alchemy enhancing philosopher's stone, the presence of a girl who could pass through solid matter, and the small zombie horde left the man as unphased as when I described my discovery that Majahal died before I arrived.

When I had finished, the Swarm Alchemist spoke. "Before we leave for East City, prepare a written report on this incident. In the meantime, you are ordered not to speak to anyone else about the stone you saw or the girl with the oroboros tattoo. All information about both is classified."

"Classified?" I asked, confused. "You mean the military knew about them before? What else is known about them?"

"You don't have clearance for any additional information on this subject, Iron Sole. Prepare your report, then drop the matter."

At the note of finality in the Colonel's voice, I knew further conversation would prove fruitless, so I saluted, turned, and walked out.

. . .

Author's comments:  
I'm sure everyone's already guessed who Sloth is, but what she's ultimately up to may surprise some of you. I hope everyone enjoyed Loki getting the chance to show off what he's capable of.


	6. The Secrets of the East

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 6) The secrets of the East  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

On the trip to Ishbal, I made some updates to the arrays on my shoes. I figured that since command was sending State Alchemists in to aid in the reconstruction, I should be ready to transmute buildings, roads, wells, and other necessities. It took me the entire trip to get it done, so I didn't have time to chat with the others on the way, but I was very satisfied with the results.

When I stepped outside, I felt very much at home. The sun was high in the sky, and the desert sands stretched endlessly in every direction. I could make out, just barely, the outlines of ruined buildings.

The Ishbalans themselves were operating out of a tent-city. The military's supply convoys had provided food and water. They were surviving, but it was to be our job to get them to the point of thriving.

The Swarm Alchemist led us over to a tallish man who had accessorized his blue military uniform with a wide brimmed hat, and wore a heavy looking revolver from a wide gunbelt in place of the standard sidearm. A silver chain was visible running from his belt to his pocket.

As we approached, the man's eyes flicked over us briefly before he spoke. "Great. Command's sent me more Alchemists. Are they even trying to pretend you're here to help with the Ishbalan reconstruction anymore?"

"Colonel," replied the Swarm Alchemist in his standard irritated formal tone, "command has made it clear that reconstruction is progressing too slowly. Additional resources have been allocated accordingly."

"Cut the crap. I've been requesting digging equipment for weeks, machined parts for generators, and additional masonry tools. Instead command sends me pallets of metal slugs and more soldiers. It took me a month before I got them to send dried food instead of bulk cellulose."

"But isn't what they've sent more efficient?" I asked. "Metal slugs and bulk cellulose can be packed tighter and shipped in greater quantities at a time, then be transmuted into food, parts, and tools at the site."

"That would work out just fine anywhere but Ishbal, kid."

"Why? Is there some sort of problem with Alchemy in this area?"

"It's not the area, kid. It's the people. The Ishbalans consider Alchemy to be a sin, and anything made using it is unclean. They won't eat transmuted food, drink from transmuted wells, wear transmuted clothes, or live in transmuted buildings."

"But that doesn't make any sense. If that's the case, why did command send State Alchemists to help with this?"

"Why indeed?" he responded meaningfully with a glance at my commanding officer.

"Whatever command's reasons," responded the Swarm Alchemist, "my men and I are here to assist in any way we can."

In response, the man drew his large revolver and fired five shots. Each bullet struck the ground in front of one of us, and the impact was accompanied by gold arcs of alchemic light. Five shovels had been transmuted out of the trace materials in the sand.

"Then grab a shovel and start digging. The Ishbalans won't use transmuted tools, but when we're done, the well itself won't be a product of alchemy." He started to walk away, before adding as an afterthought, "By the way. The name's Ryan Murdoch, Gunslinger Alchemist, for all that's worth around here. Welcome to Ishbal."

. . .

More used to the desert than the others, I was able to set a pace that would keep anyone from dropping from exhaustion or dehydration. It was still exhausting work. To his credit, the Swarm Alchemist was alongside us the whole way, despite this obviously not being his element.

The sun was beginning to set when the Gunslinger Alchemist approached us. "Leave your tools where they are. Time to head back to base, grab some chow,, and rest up for tomorrow."

I started walking toward the Ishbalan tent city, but was stopped by a firm hand on my shoulder.

"Military quarters are this way," said the Gunslinger Alchemist as he pointed his thumb east, farther into the desert.

Over the next dune, we made out a guard tower, then high stone walls topped with razor wire, then finally, sandbag lined trenches surrounding the base.  
"Are we getting ready to fight another war with Ishbal?" asked Melvin as we approached the fortified base.

"Probably," noted Ken. "It would explain why command has been sending alchemists out here, knowing that the Ishbalans don't like them, then sending supplies the Ishbalans can't or won't use."

"Let me run an alternate theory by you," said the Gunslinger Alchemist. "Command doesn't give a shit about the Ishbalans one way or the other. This whole reconstruction effort is just an excuse to increase fortification along the eastern border."

"But why would they want to?" I asked. "The great desert provides a natural barrier to attack, so the only thing to defend against is rebellion. And if that's what they were worried about, why risk antagonizing the Ishbalans and provoking the very thing they're worried about?"

"Gunslinger, Iron Sole," said the Colonel, "tomorrow morning, report to my field office. Command has additional orders for you."

"And you didn't mention this until now, why?" asked the Gunslinger Alchemist.

"My orders were to discuss this at the command post, away from the Ishbalans. The rest of you are to continue with the reconstruction efforts from today until further notice."

The Colonel could have just asked to be shown to the command post right away. And he could have dragged us straight into this meeting instead of waiting until morning. For whatever reason, the Swarm Alchemist was delaying.

. . .

"What you are about to hear is highly classified," began the Swarm Alchemist.

"What isn't?" I mumbled under my breath.

"A review of Fuhrer Bradley's personal papers, following his death, revealed the existence and location of a ruined city beyond our eastern border."

"An archeology dig is 'highly classified'?" asked the Gunslinger Alchemist scornfully. "Is this why command's putting up this show of reconstructing Ishbal?"

"I have been ordered to oversee the reconstruction, and I intend to see that performed competently. Your orders regarding these ruins are an entirely separate issue."

"So, what's so important about this city anyway?" asked Gunslinger.

"Its defenses are still intact."

"Wait," I said, "I thought you said the city was in ruins."

"It is. According to reports, the city itself is in a state of extreme disrepair, and there are no signs of human activity wihtin. None of the men we sent inside to investigate, however, ever returned."

"So the suicide mission falls to us," finished the Gunslinger Alchemist.

Ignoring him, the Swarm Alchemist continued, "Your orders are to penetrate the city's defenses, ascertain any threat it may represent, and report back your findings."

. . .

Loki, Gunslinger, and I set out further east after gathering some supplies. The Fuhrer's map was surprisingly accurate and up to date, suggesting someone had been out here just prior to the Fuhrer's death.

"I don't think bringing the dog along was a good idea," said the Gunslinger Alchemist as he looked concerned at Loki. "If we meet opposition, he could get caught in the crossfire."

"Loki can take care of himself," I replied, patting the dog's flank. "He might well end up bailing us out."

The conversation ended as we crested a dune and looked down into an old city. It'd been partially reclaimed by the desert, but it was still in better shape than Ishbal. Like the Colonel had said, there were no signs of inhabitation visible from here.

The three of us crouched down to avoid being outlined by the dune as we took a moment to observe.

"I'll stay on the dune and cover your approach, Iron Sole. You move a lot faster than I do in this sand, and I'm a better shot. Once you're at the city's edge, you cover my approach."

"Got it."

Staying low, Loki and I quickly and quietly covered the distance. Once there, the chimera started sniffing the ground.

"What is it, boy?" I asked in a whisper, signaling for Gunslinger to hold his position.

Sniffing around a bit more, Loki pointed out several partially obscured footprints. We weren't alone in this city.

After confirming the immediate area was secure, I signaled for the other alchemist to join me.

"What've you got?" he asked in a low voice on arriving.

I pointed to the tracks.

"Can the dog track by scent?"

"Yep. Loki, which way'd they go?"

The chimera took a moment to blow the sand out of his nose, then took off at a brisk trot following the trail.

Loki led us deeper into the ruined city, and as he did so, I started to notice something familiar. There were straight lines of ruined buildings, and indentations in the ground that hadn't been fully obliterated by the sands and time.

"What do you know about the events in Liore?" I asked my partner.

"I heard the city was wiped out with alchemy. Why?"

"I think something similar happened, or is going to happen, here. That line there is part of a city-wide transmutation circle."

"So which is it? Are we in danger or not?"

I thought for a moment, then stomped the ground with my right foot. A building in the same architectural style as the others sprang out of the ground accompanied by a bright purple glow. Seamlessly integrated into the city, the new building cut off the line of the array we were on.

"Now if anyone tries to activate the array, they'll have to track down the break and remove the building. Should buy us some time if this thing is still a threat."

"Good thinking," acknowledged the Gunslinger Alchemist as we continued to follow Loki deeper into the city. "Nice building, by the way. Hotel?"

"Bed and breakfast," I corrected. "Before I found out the Ishbalans hated alchemy, I fixed up the arrays on my shoes to help with the reconstruction. Might as well get some use out of that."

. . .

Loki led us to a large central building. The structure had spires, steeples, and churchbells. Standing just outside the main door, perfectly still, were a pair of statues or armored figures. It was impossible to tell which. What was striking, however, was that the armor was identical to the suit Alphose Elric had worn when he came to Liore.

A bird knocked a pebble off one of the nearby buildings as it took flight. The helmet of one of the figures turned in that direction for a few seconds, then resumed its original position. That settled it. These were guards.

"Alright, Iron Sole. If there are guards outside, there are probably others inside. With the missing scouts Colonel Swarm told us about, we can safely assume these guys aren't friendly. So, how do we bypass or disable these two without alerting the ones inside?"

"Lure them away," I replied. "Give them something nonthreatening to do that'll still get them away from their posts. We can jump them once they're far enough away that no one inside will hear the racket."

"What're you thinking for a distraction?"

I looked over the guards and grinned. "Loki, fetch!"

Loki darted out at the guards, and before they'd realized what was happening, the dog had bit down on the loincloth of one of the suits of armor and ripped it away.

"Hey, you mutt, give that back!" the guard screamed and tried to snatch it away.

Loki playfully hopped out of reach each time the guard tried to retrieve his garment.

"Having trouble with the dog, Earl?"

"Shut up and help me!" shot back Earl in frustration.

"Fine," the other guard replied with laughter in his voice. "I'll circle around and you drive it towards me, then we can-"

At that point, Loki took off at a dead run, and both guards hastened after.

"Don't let it get away!" called out Ear.

"I'm coming!" replied the other.

Half a mile away, Loki stopped dead and turned to face his pursuers.

"Now we've got you, you mangy mutt!"

"Actually," replied the Gunslinger Alchemist from his rooftop vantage point.

"We've got you," I finished as I stepped out from behind a wall to block their retreat.

A shot rang out, and impacted a nearby building as I stomped the ground. Two gigantic hands, one glowing yellow, and the other glowing purble, formed themselves out of stone and grabbed the two guards by the waist, lifting them off the ground.

The pair flailed about helplessly in surprise, while the Gunslinger Alchemist hopped down and approached.

"State Alchemists," said Earl, calming down and ceasing his futile struggle against the stone grip.

"Looks like," replied his companion, far too calmly.

"Guess we'll have to get on our game, Lee."

With that, the two guards clapped their hands together in unison, and pressed them against the stone that held them. Arcs of blue alchemic light shot through our transmuted stone, and their bindings exploded off them, hurling sharp rocks in all directions.

On impulse, I transmuted a small wall between myself and the explosion, and managed to avoid anything more than a cut on the forehead. Gunslinger and Loki had dropped prone to avoid the shrapnel.

The two armored guards wasted no time charging at the State Alchemists, and Lee had hopped my makeshift barrier before the dust had fully cleared. A doubled-over pair of heavy metal fists descended toward my head, so I dropped and rolled out of the way.

A shot rang out, as the Gunslinger Alchemist transmuted a large stone fist from a nearby building, which slammed into Earl like a freight train.

Seeing an opening, I kicked Lee's leg as he came down, and deconstructed the armor on that spot as I went. Unarmored, it would be easy to buckle the knee with my automail leg. Only problem was, there was no leg inside the armor.

My leg passed right through the spot his should have been, my momentum unslowed due to deconstructing the armor as I went through. On the plus side, with his right leg now missing, Lee did lose his balance and topple. On the minus side, due to the unexpected way it happened, he toppled right on top of me.

Loki, in full Chimera form, launched himself at Lee. The Chimera knocked the guard off me, and the impact jarred loose his helmet. Toppling over like a broken puppet, I could see into the inside of the armor.

"They're empty suits of armor!" I screamed.

I needn't have bothered. The impact of the Gunslinger Alchemist's last attack had broken off Earl's breast plate.

"A little Help?" came a call from Lee's helmet.

"I'll be right there as soon as I finish these two off." replied Earl. Then, he clapped his hands and transmuted a massive cannon pointing at my companion.

"Never get in a shooting match with the Gunslinger Alchemist," he quipped before shooting the base of the transmuted cannon, reversing its orientation, and blowing Earl to bits with his own weapon.

"Earl!" called the disembodied voice from Lee's helmet.

"What are these things?" asked the Gunslinger Alchemist, picking up Lee's helmet by its ornamental feather.

I looked over the rest of the body as I replied, "Some sort of soul attachment, but I've never seen one this stable."

"Don't ignore me!" yelled Lee.

"Or what?" asked Gunslinger. "You'll stare us to death?"

I took the helmet from him and looked inside as Lee continued to protest his treatment. There, drawn on the underside of the helmet's top, was an alchemic seal drawn in what looked like blood. I turned the helmet so my partner could see.

"It looks like that's the anchoring point. I'll bet if we put the helmet back on, the rest of the armor will reanimate," I explained as I set the helmet on a nearby wall to put it at eye level.

"And if we break the seal, it dies," guessed Gunslinger. "We have some questions for you."

"You think you can threaten me, mortal?" demanded Lee.

"Your partner proved mortal enough by my reckoning," mused Gunslinger.

"Death doesn't frighten me, Alchemist."

"Alright then," I said. "No death threats." I gestured to Loki, who quickly dug a hole, then picked up the helmet.

"What are you doing?" demanded Lee.

"No death threats." And I dropped him in the hole.

"Wait!" exclaimed Lee as he realized what I was going to do. "You don't understand what she'd do to me if I talked!"

"The blood seal was pretty clever," I mused as Loki slowly burred Lee. "Using the iron in the blood to act as a bridge between the metal body of the armor and the human soul. I'll bet the attachment could last forever, or at least until the blood decayed away. On the other hand, if the armor rusted just right, the seal might outlast the actual blood."

"Alright! I'll talk! Just get me out of here!"

I signaled Loki to stop filling in the hole, but didn't immediately pull him out.

"How many more of you things are there inside?" asked Gunslinger.

"Four."

"You're guarding something," noted Gunslinger. "What is it?"

"Please, don't make me-"

I kicked a bit more sand into the hole.

"Alright! It's a laboratory."

"Who's laboratory?" I demanded.

"We just call her the Master! None of us know her real name!"

"Is this master the one who attached your soul to this armor?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Is she here?" asked Gunslinger.

"Not at the moment."

"That's all we need for now," said Gunslinger, before shooting the remains of Lee's body and deconstructing it.

I pulled the helmet out of the ground, kicked a wall to transmute a niche, and set Lee into it.

"We'll come pick you up on the way back," I said.

"Wait," said Lee. "You'll be killed by the others, and they won't know where I am."

"Guess you'd better hope we win, then." With that, I transmuted the niche closed. I then took a piece of chalk and drew an X on the spot.

"Leaving a clue in case we don't make it?" asked Gunslinger.

"It really wouldn't be right to leave him there forever."

. . .

The three of us silently crept into the building. There was a long, tiled hall, lit intermittently by small ceiling lights.

One of us must've tripped a catch, because without warning, the floor opened beneath us into a pit of spikes. Loki nimbly hopped to safety before the floor fully opened. Gunslinger shot the ceiling and transmuted a line to hang from and climb back up with. I angled my fall so my right foot would hit a high spike first, and transmuted the whole batch of spikes away, landing harmlessly on flat ground.

"So much for the quiet approach," mused Gunslinger. "If the trap going off didn't alert them, our alchemy would have."

I hopped out of the pit. "Agreed. No point trying to stick with subtlety." With that, I stomped my foot and fused the hallway's tiles together, making any other traps impossible to trigger.

When we approached the door at the other end, we heard sounds of a struggle.

"One of our guys might be alive in there!" exclaimed Gunslinger.

I kicked open the heavy metal security door, transmuting off its latch and hinges.

Inside, four more of the armored figures were trying to force a dark haired boy into a cell. The boy had an automail right arm and left leg, and was being held with one guard on each arm. He was kicking and screaming in a wild fury.

The only guard who noticed our entry was one positioned behind the cell door ready to quickly close it when they got the boy inside.

A shot rang out, and the head of one of the guards holding the boy disappeared, deconstructed by the Gunslinger Alchemist. Rather than drop to the ground as we'd expected, the figure turned our direction.

The distraction was enough to cost the guard his grip on the struggling boy. With his left arm free, he twisted in the grip of his remaining captor, and struck him hard with both feet.

Loki leapt past us and tacked one of the guards, but was quickly thrown off by a solid punch to the stomach.

The guard behind the cell door clapped and pressed his hands to the ground, and a solid wall sprang up behind Gunslinger and I, blocking our retreat.

No way back, I charged forward and kicked the Cell door, transmuting the bars and wrapping up his hands.

"I've seen this trick a few times now. If you can't clap, you can't transmute."

Gunslinger's headless opponent clapped and grabbed the security door, transmuting it into a shield held before him. Gunslinger countered by shooting the ceiling above his opponent, and transmuting a huge stone fist to shoot down at him. This took him by surprise, and he was slammed hard into the floor.

Loki was in trouble. These things were stronger, faster, and smarter than the zombies we'd fought before, and his armored scales and reinforced bones weren't enough to make up the difference. Each time Loki went for a leap, he was getting punched down out of midair.

The boy was doing remarkably well. His opponent was treating him with extreme caution, backing away and circling. The boy charged blindly in a berserk fury. The guard held up a forearm to block a punch from the boy's automail, and the armor's forearm cracked visibly.

Gunslinger and the boy holding their own, I stomped my foot, and transmuted a pillar under the feet of Loki's opponent. The guard hadn't moved since regaining his stance, and proved too solidly rooted to dodge my attack. The pillar crushed him against the ceiling, pinning him.

The one pinned to the floor managed to clap and touch the ground. Blue sparks raced towards where I'd wrapped up the first one in iron bars. The bars untwisted, releasing him, and he then transmuted one of them into a thick bladed short sword.

Ignoring the State Alchemists, he ran to aid his friend against the boy. The boy had been so focused keeping up his frantic attacks on his opponent that he didn't see the other guard coming up from behind. The blade came down with an incredible amount of force on the boy's left shoulder, cleaving his one human arm from his body.

"Kid gloves are off, Iron Sole," said the Gunslinger Alchemist. "No prisoners. Just take them out." With that, the guard who'd cleaved off the boy's arm exploded into tiny flakes of metal, still arcing with gold sparks from the Gunslinger Alchemist's shot.

Loki knocked the other guard who'd been attacking the boy down, when the two guards pinned by pillars transmuted themselves free.

For his part, the boy seemed to be more concerned that his punching bag had been tacked away than that his arm had been chopped off. Why that was soon became apparent. Blue arcs of lightning shot out of the stump, and bone assembled itself before my eyes. Another wave of blue light layered muscle overtop, and a final wave transmuted the skin and nails back onto the completely regenerated arm.

The object of my quest right in the room with me, I was blindsided by the headless guard. His metal fist struck me hard in the back, and I flew, face first, into a wall.

Gunslinger fared little better. The blue light from the arm's regeneration caused him to turn reflexively and aim his gun at the boy. The remaining guard clapped and punched part of the remains of the pillar which had held him. A hard stone ball accelerated like a cannon by the alchemy. It struck the Gunslinger Alchemist on his right arm, breaking it and causing him to lose his grip on the gun.

A birage of blow rained down on the boy's opponent, cracking open the breastplate as Loki's jaws managed to find purchase and began ripping limbs from their moorings. One final blow from the boy's automail arm must've broken the blood seal, because the armor fell limp and stopped moving.

Spitting blood, I turned to the headless guard just in time to see him clap and transmute a stone fist from the floor, which accelerated towards me on a snamking column of transmuted stone. I brought my right leg up to meet it, intending to deconstruct it. When the stone fist made contact, I activated the array on my shoe. I felt the energy circulating, but the guard was still transmuting it from his end. Matching raw power against raw power, my transmutation proved the weaker.

My automail buckled under the blow, the ankle joint failing first, and then the knee. But that slowed the blow more than my failed alchemy had, and I was able to drop and roll out of the way before the first broke open a section of the stone wall.

Gunslinger's opponent repeated his move, but even with a broken arm, the man was clearheaded enough to see it coming and easily dodged the cannonball.  
"Your gun!" called out Gunslinger as he held out his left hand.

I tossed my sidearm to him before rolling under the horizontal column that had nearly crushed me.

Left handed, Gunslinger fired off a half-dozen shots at the guard's right shoulder. The bullets tore into the joint material of the armor, causing the arm to drop off.

"Now we're even," said Gunslinger.

The boy had frozen up, and was staring on horror through the huge hole in the wall. Loki slammed into the one-armed guard, knocking him off balance. The guard fell over, but appeared otherwise uninjured.

I took my left leg and pressed it against the column above me. With it no longer being transmuted, my alchemy went forward unopposed. Purple lightning crackled along the length of the column. A valve appeared on my opponent's end, directly above the hole where his helmet would have been. Sand blasted out of the valve at high pressure.

I didn't know where his blood seal was, but sandblasting the entire interior of his armor, I didn't have to. The headless guard dropped.

The one-armed guard kicked Loki off him, but the distraction had given Gunslinger time to retrieve his weapon. The guard tried to clap, remembered he only had one arm, and looked helplessly at the Gunslinger Alchemist before the shot rang out and his body was destroyed.

Loki, back in dog form, helped me stand without putting weight on my ruined automail leg. Gunslinger approached the boy we'd rescued.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"It can't be," whispered the boy without moving a muscle. "How can it be here?"

I turned and followed the boy's gaze through the hole in the wall. On the other side, I saw another chamber, much larger than this one. In the center, there was a massive freestanding stone door frame. A stylized eye was carved on its sealed double-doors, and humanoid statues decorated its border.

"What is that?" I asked no one in particular.

"The Gate," whispered the terrified boy.

"That explains everything," responded the Gunslinger Alchemist rolling his eyes. "Look, kid, we have to get you-"

"YOU WON'T TAKE ME BACK THERE!"

As Gunslinger reached out to the boy, he grabbed the offered arm with his automail grip and slammed the Gunslinger Alchemist to the floor. As soon as he was down, the boy straddled him and started pounding Gunslinger's face with his fists.

Gunslinger was probably unconscious after the first blow. Recalling what I'd seen this boy do to the armored guards, I quickly stomped with my one good foot. A stone hand gripped the boy by the waist and lifted him harmlessly into the air.

"No one's going to take you anywhere!" Calm down."

As the boy struggled, I hobbled over to Gunslinger as quickly as I could. He was out cold with a broken nose, but he'd be okay.

"I'm going to let you down now," I said. "When I do, you can go if you want to, but if you try to hurt anyone, I'll have to restrain you again." Without waiting for a response, I did just that, opening the stone fist with my alchemy and standing aside from the exit door.

No longer feeling trapped, the boy calmed considerably. He looked warily between me and the Gate.

"Are you okay now?" I asked in as soothing a voice as I could muster.

He nodded.

"Okay," I said, trying to keep the situation calm. "I'm Marcus Oren, the Iron Sole Alchemist. This is Loki. That guy you just knocked out is the Gunslinger Alchemist. What's your name?"

"Wrath," he replied tentatively.

"Wrath, like I said, we aren't going to try to take you anywhere you don't want to go. Do you understand?"

Wrath nodded.

"Now, what is that thing, and why does it have you so scarred?" I asked, pointing to the Gate.

"It's where I came from, but it shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"The Gate appears to alchemists who break the ultimate taboo and try to bring someone back to life. When it appears, it takes something from them, then it goes away again. She found another way to summon it, but not like this. Never permanently."

"Who?"

"Dante."

"Is she the one these guys call the Master?" I guessed.

"I think so. It's too dark."

"What's too dark?"

"The Gate. It's always bathed in light, but not now."

"I'll check it out," I said and started to climb through the hole.

"No! Stop!"

I froze. "What's wrong?"

"It always takes something. Sometimes it takes everything."

I swallowed. The boy's fear was infectious. "You don't know why it's here."

Wrath nodded.

"And something isn't right about it."

He nodded again.

"And it's dangerous."

"Yes."

"Then we have to get more information. I'm going to get closer. You wait here. It can't hurt you from this distance, right?"

"I don't know."

I carefully crawled through the hole, leaving Loki behind to keep an eye on Wrath and Gunslinger. As I slowly crawled toward the structure, it occurred to me that if I had to move quickly to flee something that came out of it, I wouldn't be able to.

I circled the Gate, and then approached after confirming there were no further surprises hiding on the other side. Placing my hand on it, the door was smooth stone on a well lubricated hinge. Seeing no other obvious test to perform, I pushed it open.

The other side of the room was visible through the now open door frame.

"It's a fake!" Wrath yelled, his fear turning to anger. He charged the structure and punched a hole in one of the thick stone doors with his mechanical fist.  
I backed up before asking, "Why would this Dante make a copy of this 'Gate'?"

"Maybe to hide it," said Wrath as he continued to pound the stone replica.

"Hide what? The real Gate?"

"No. Her philosopher's stone."

"Philosopher's Stone?" I asked. "Why don't we go over this from the beginning. You obviously weren't working with those guards. What's your connection to this Dante?"

A dark smile spread over the boy's face. "I am one of the seven."

"What does that mean?"

"Dante created some of us. Found others. We were used as tools to guide and trick Alchemists into creating the Philosopher's Stone. She claimed that with the stone, she could make us human."

"'Created you'? 'Make you human'? You mean to say you aren't human?"

To emphasize his point, he took a piece of stone hi his non-mechanical arm, the one he'd regenerated during the battle, then broke it apart in his fist. "No. I am a homonculus."

"A homonculus?" I've read about those. An artificial human body with no soul of its own, created in the process of bringing a person back to life. Wouldn't that mean you are human, just a resurrected human?"

"No. You said it yourself. A homonculus has no soul of their own." He spat, like the words tasted bitter in his mouth.

"So you're looking for the Philosopher's Stone to become human."

"I don't want to be human anymore. I'm going to use the stone to bring Mommy back."

"You lost your mother. I'm sorry to hear that."

"We brought her the Stone, but she wouldn't use it to bring back Mommy, who died getting it."

"That's why you broke with Dante."

Wrath nodded.

"I have a thousand other questions, but we can talk while we search." I plopped down and planted my automail leg in the middle of a transmutation circle. I knew next to nothing about automail, so there was only so much I could do to fix it. I ended up fusing the broken joints. I could stand and limp on it, but it wasn't even as good as Dominik's loaner.

As I pulled myself to a standing position, I asked, "Hey, Wrath. How did you do that thing where you grew back your arm?"

He looked at his left hand and spoke. "All homonculi can do it. It uses up red stones, but it lets us heal ourselves from almost anything."

"I take it the other arm and leg fell into the 'almost' category."

"I don't know why I can't grow them back. Maybe it's because the Gate took them. Maybe it's because they were human limbs."

"Well, that explains why the Gate's so frightening. If it might be able to cripple even someone like you."

"That's not it. You wouldn't understand. You haven't seen it."

Letting the matter drop, we started searching the facility. When we entered a room, I leaned against a wall and wretched. There were corpses, dozens of them piled in a heap. All of them incomplete. Some were missing arms, some legs, others looked like they'd been gutted.

"They saw the Gate, didn't they?" I asked Wrath.

"Yes."

We moved on. At length, we found not the Philosopher's stone Wrath was looking for, but a library. Most of the texts were commonly available alchemy books, though a very good set. What drew my eye, however, was the pile of handwritten notebooks. The script was flowery and elegant, most importantly, easy to read despite the age and faded quality of the ink in some of the books.

"They're about the Gate," I reported. "She was doing experiments trying to learn more about it."

"What happened to the homonculi created in the experiments?"

"Apparently used in some sort of transmutation she was experimenting with to keep the Gate open longer. Looks like she abandoned that line of research. Something about needing coordinated effort on the other side."

I fathered up the research notes into a bag and continued exploring the facility with Wrath.

"When you said you had no soul, what did you mean by that? You can walk and talk and think and feel. What else is there to a soul?"

"Alchemy. Homonculi can't use alchemy."

"And that's a function of the soul? I suppose that makes sense, given that the souls bound in armor back there could use alchemy. Though I'd still like to know how they did it with no circle."

"They saw the Gate. Once an alchemist has seen the Gate, he can make an array with his body by clasping his hands and circulating the energy within."

"So those guards were part of Dante's Gate experiments," I concluded.

We'd circled around back to where we'd left Loki and Gunslinger right as the later was coming around.

"Ugh, how long was I out?"

"A couple hours," I replied, helping him into a sitting position without the use of his broken arm.

"You going to freak out on me again?" he asked Wrath, who flinched.

"You scared him," I explained. "He thought you were going to take him..."

"Where? Back to the base where there's food and water? Back to his family who probably miss him?"

"He was fighting those guards when we got here," I pointed out. "I'm not sure how rationally I'd acct after that either."

"Where are you from, kid?"

Wrath thought for a minute, then said, "Dublith."

"You got family there?"

"Kind of," replied Wrath noncommittally.

"Then once we get back to base, we're shipping you back there."

"But-" began Wrath before Gunslinger cut him off.

"Unless you'd prefer I didn't forget about that whole 'assaulting an officer of the State military' thing.

"Look, kid. Whatever problems you've got at home can't be as bad as being alone in the middle of the desert."

"I'll ask Colonel Swarm if I can escort him back. My automail's busted up, and I need to stop by Rush Valley for repairs anyway."

"Automail?" asked Gunslinger.

I pulled up my right pant leg revealing the somewhat twisted metal limb.

. . .

On the way back, I gave Wrath my right shoe. Ostensibly because he was barefoot and my leg was automail anyway. But really, I wanted to make sure no one back at base saw the oroboros tattoo on the bottom of his foot.

Gunslinger retrieved the head of the guard we'd disabled outside, and we returned to base. I reported to the Swarm Alchemist, and again he got most of the truth about what I'd found. Souls bound to suits of armor, a pile of rotting corpses that had obviously been experimented on, and a frightened boy being forced into one of the cells.

Neither Wrath, nor the helmet pointed out the gaps in my report. Dante's notes and Wrath's nature. As a result, my request to escort Wrath to Dublith with a stop at Rush Valley for repairs was granted. As before, I was ordered not to discuss what I'd seen.

. . .

Author's comments:  
If anyone was in need of a real friend, it was Wrath. An understanding ear and compassionate advice is an equivalent exchange for the knowledge to accomplish Iron Sole's goal, right?


	7. Homecoming

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 7) Homecoming  
by Howlin

 

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

When Wrath, Loki, and I were alone on the train, I reached into my pocket and produced Karin's stone.

"I didn't want to say anything back at the ruin. I took this philosopher stone off a third rate alchemist serial killer. If you can help me figure out how to use it safely, we can try to bring back your mom."

"You'd do that?"

"You seemed pretty confident that Dante could do it with the stone you brought her. All I want in return is to know how the stone works."

Wrath looked more closely at the glowing stone in my hand. "That's not the philosopher stone."

"Wait, but Karin's notes said-"

"Karin the third rate alchemist you got it from? She was wrong."

"But I've seen these in action. They amplify transmutations and bypass equivalent exchange."

"Oh, those things are like the real thing, just a thousand times weaker. The other homonculi used to hand them out to promising alchemists to whet their appetite for the stone's power."

"Used to? Another homonculus was the one that gave Karin this stone. At least I think it was another homonculus. She had the same oroboros mark as you. Called herself Sloth."

Wrath's fingers dug into the armrests of his chair. "When?"

"A few days ago. Why?"

"Describe her," Wrath ordered, and his tone and expression made Loki nervous. I reassured the chimera so his hackles raising wouldn't trigger the transmutation array on his body as I answered Wrath.

"She was a little girl. Black hair, pale skin and purple eyes like yours. Looked to be about four. Didn't act like it at all. Had the ability to pass through solid matter. Oroboros tattoo on her back by the right shoulder."

Wrath sighed in disappointment and relaxed.

"Mind telling me what that was about?"

"It wasn't Mommy."

"Can you tell me about her?"

"She was also called Sloth. I think our names get recycled. I remember one of the others saying something about that."

"She was another homonculus?"

"Uh-huh. Edward made her. Him and his brother. She was supposed to be their mommy, but she became mine."

"Wait, Edward Elric?"

"Yeah," replied Wrath. "He killed her too."

"Why would he do that?" I asked, stunned.

Wrath shook his head. "I didn't understand it then, and I don't now. All that matters is that she's gone."

"I'm sorry." Changing the subject, I asked, "You said your names get recycled. What are they? Are there only seven?"

"I think so. Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Pride, Greed, and Wrath."

"So, can you walk through walls too?"

"No. We all had different powers. We can all heal using red stones, and we're all really hard to permanently kill, but other than that, individual homonculi have their own powers."

"What's yours?" I asked.

"I could use alchemy."

"Could?"

Wrath held up his automail fist. "I took Edward's limbs and integrated them into my body. While I had them, I could use alchemy."

"Piggy backing on his soul," I mused. "Then you lost them to the Gate and they won't grow back."

Wrath nodded.

"You mentioned red stones that homonculi use to heal. Is that what this is?" I held up Karin's stone.

He nodded again. "Alchemists can boost their power with them, or a homonculus can eat them. Consumed stones fuel our regeneration."

"Could you use the ones you'd eaten to boost your alchemy?"

"No."

"What can you tell me about the rebounds that happen when using the stone?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"That wasn't really my department."

. . .

"What happened to you?" asked Paninya, wide-eyed. I still wore the bandages for my superficial injuries, and my limp was obvious.

"You should see the other guy," I half-teased. "Seriously, though, the military sent me into a rough situation. Dominik's gear saved my life a couple times over."

Paninya and I talked as we headed back to Dominik's shop. I told her about my adventures thus far. She stopped taking me seriously when I brought up the zombies, and was rolling her eyes at the possessed suits of armor.

"Alright, soldier boy. I get it. How you actually got messed up is classified At least this is more entertaining."

I decided not to fight it, and asked, "In that case, how about I tell you about how I captured the Phantom Thief of Aquroya before we met?"

We laughed warmly as we stepped into Domonik's shop. Wrath had been quiet, and hung back with Loki while Paninya and I got caught up.

All laughter stopped, as Dominik stared me down. One glance at my stance, and he knew why I was here. I withered under the glare of his disapproval, and I wasn't at all sure why. A moment longer, and he nodded. "Let's see how bad the damage is."

"When you're done fixing me, could you have a look at him?"

"I-" began Wrath before I cut him off.

"Hey, I'm a big shot State Alchemist, remember. They pay me more than enough to cover us both."

While Wrath and I waited limbless for Dominik to finish, Paninya showed off the trophies and ribbons that now decorated Dominik's storefront. Rush Valley's Automail Arm wrestling champ had been busy.

"I put up the prize money as the reward for a new contest. I invited some of the best craftsmen in town to participate. After winning that one, I started holding more contests. I charged an entry fee to cover expenses and expand the grand prize. I'm most proud of this one."

"It says second place," I replied a bit confused.

"Some of the other mechanics got sick of me showing their boys up, so they put together a bunch of high performance rigs. When I lost to a masterwork specifically designed to beat me at arm wrestling, it added legitimacy to my other wins. Including other wins in that high performance contest."

"Heh, so you were wrong. I'm not talking to the real Rush Valley champion after all."

"Nah, Dominik isn't interested in building custom arm wrestling automail. Given what the contest evolved into, I figured I'd bow out of future competitions. I do still run the tournament though, and that gives me plenty of chances to talk up Dominik's stuff."

"Aaaaaah!" we heard from the back room. Paninya took off at a superhuman sprint, and I sent Loki with her. When Wrath and I made it in, leaning on each other for support, we saw Dominik seated at his workbench. Wrath's arm was partially disassembled.

"You!" Dominik shot at Wrath, who gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. "You've been to Risembool, haven't you! Admit it!"

Wrath's anger turned to confusion. "Um, yes?"

"I knew it!" exclaimed Dominik with a hint of defeat in his voice. "This is one of Pinako Rockbell's arms. There's no mistaking the style."

"Why did you scream?" asked Paninya as Loki sniffed around Dominik and laid his head on Dominik's lap in a comforting gesture.

Dominik only stared at the arm and trembled.

"He's fine," announced Paninya with a long-suffering sight.

"Okay?" I replied dubiously.

Paninya helped Wrath and I back to the waiting room.

. . .

"With all the joint damage, yours was practically a rebuild. Try not to break it again." Dominik said as he brought out my leg. "For you, there was nothing but some basic maintenance to be done. Probably wasn't worth detaching."

When Paninya laid me down and got a solid grip on my arms, I realized what was coming. Dominik snapped the leg back into the socket, and the pain flooded back instantly. Unlike the first time, there was no buildup or gradual spreading of the pain. It was fully present in the blink of an eye.

I recovered more quickly this time, and after managing to walk to the toilet and throw up, I was practically back to one hundred percent. It was a good thing to, because Wrath was up next.

Dominik and Paninya hooked up his automail limbs simultaneously, and his screams were deafening. When the homonculus flailed and kicked, Dominik and Paninya were both tossed off the Homonculus with far too much force. I transmuted padding onto the walls before they struck, and gave Wrath as much space as I could. A moment later, Wrath was curled up and whimpering. I probably would be too if I had to go through that with two limbs.

"I've never seen anyone recover that quickly," noted Paninya.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you were out of it for the better part of an hour, for example. Look, he's starting to stand up."

"It's been that long?" I asked, looking at my watch.

"It's easy to lose track of time in that state. I've seen hardened war veterans go down for fifteen minutes. It's possible to stay conscious and active all the way through, but I've never managed it. He must have an incredible pain tolerance."

Thinking back on how he didn't seem to notice his other arm being chopped off, I agreed, "That make sense." I didn't feel so bad about my reaction in light of the comparison.

. . .

On the train, I replaced my returned shoe as I asked Wrath, "What are we going to find in Dublith?"

Wrath flinched, but remained silent, as he continued to gently stroke Loki's head.

"You told Gunslinger you had family here. Other homonculi?"

"No. Worse. This is where the alchemist who created me lives."

. . .

Wrath silently led the way through the streets of Dublith to a butcher shop. Recalling the details of a particularly nasty serial killer I'd read about from a few years back, and thinking on how unbalanced Karin had been, I shuddered.

"I can't go in there," said Wrath suddenly.

"I won't make you," I said before realizing how silly that must sound. Four animated suits of armor with stronger alchemy than me couldn't force him through a door.  
Still, Wrath seemed relieved rather than insulted.

"But I am going in," I continued.

Before the conversation could continue, we heard a loud crash from inside, and a boy's scream of terror. Loki transformed and darted forward as I sprinted through the shop door.

A huge man in an apron darted out from behind the counter and tackled Loki to the ground. As he did so, he yelled out, "Izumi! Company!"

I stomped the floor, and arcs of violet light raced to where Loki was being grappled with. A ring of material was flung upward and encircled the large man's upper arms and shoulders. The lost leverage gave Loki the advantage he needed to squirm out of the now bound man's grip.

The rear door of the ship flung open, revealing two figures. One was a woman with dark hair and a sleeveless white shirt. The other was a blond boy wearing white gloves and a red coat. Before I could process what was happening, the pair clapped their hands and slapped the floor.

I was suddenly surrounded by stone spikes hurling at me from every direction, accompanied by blue arcs of alchemic light. I didn't have time to even try to disrupt the transmutation. It was all I could do to keep from getting skewered.

The next thing I knew, I was suspended in midair by the dozens of stone spikes that barely missed impaling me, and I could see Loki likewise bound up.

The large man regained his feet, flexed his muscles, and shattered the stone ring I'd used to bind him, with power that had nothing to do with alchemy.

As the woman approached me, I tried, without success, to get either of my feet in contact with the floor or one of the spikes to even attempt a transmutation, but I was held fast.

"Who the hell are you?" she yelled in my face.

"I am the Iron Sole Alchemist," I replied with as much authority as I could muster while being held in this position, which was, admittedly, not much.

"A State Alchemist?" said the boy in confusion.

Ignoring the boy and apparently unsurprised with my rank, the woman loudly declared, "You've got ten seconds to explain what you're doing attacking my shop with that!" She pointed at Loki who was still struggling to free himself.

"You have five to tell me who was screaming," I shot back, resolved not to give them the satisfaction of seeing me sweat.

The boy was struck with a look of comprehension. "Oh, that was me. I'm sorry about the confusion." He clapped, but the woman held him back with a hand on his shoulder.

"You expect us to believe one of the military's living weapons cares for one second about a child in danger?"

"But Teacher," began the boy, "Brother did, didn't he?"

Her head snapped angrily in the boy's direction, then her eyes softened.

"Actually," I interjected, "that's exactly why I'm here. Out by Ishbal, I came across a black haired boy with an automail right arm and left leg who claimed to have family here."

All three froze, the woman's eyes searching mine for some clue about how much I knew. I glanced at the transmutation arrays drawn on the boy's gloves and at the woman's bare hands and addressed her directly.

"I understand if you would prefer to have this discussion somewhere more private." I looked pointedly over my shoulder at the ajar door. Wrath was nowhere to be found, but some of the local children were crowding the frame for a good look.

. . .

After transmuting me down from the spikes, and loki returning to his dog form, I was led wordlessly into a back room.

"I presume you're the alchemist who created Wrath?" I directed at the woman as I took a seat in a corner and observed the large man blocking the door out.

"Where is he?" she ignored my question.

"In town. I don't know where exactly. He was with me before this fight started, but he was pretty clear about not wanting to come in. What did you do to him that he can't bring himself to face you?"

"He's here?" mused the woman who must be the Izumi the man had called to. "What are you people doing with him?"

"If you mean the military, nothing. My superiors don't know he's a homonculus. As far as they're concerned, I'm escorting a traumatized boy back to his mother."

"Alphonse, watch him," Izumi said to the blond boy. "I'm going to see if I can find Wrath."

"He doesn't like to feel trapped," I called after Izumi as she left. "He'll respond better if you leave him a way to run away."

Alphonse looked worriedly after her, and Loki laid his head in the boy's lap. Appreciating the gesture, Alphonse gently petted the dog.

"Alphonse!" snapped the large man.

"It's okay," I reassured. "Loki won't hurt him."

"Did you make him?" asked Alphonse.

"No. He was made by..." I recalled what I had learned about the Sewing Life Alchemist, "...someone else. He wasn't in good shape when I found him. I helped him and we've been together ever since."

We sat in silence a moment longer before I ventured. "You know, your outfit reminds me of Edward Elric's."

"You knew my brother?" the boy perked up.

"Alphonse... You can't be. Alphonse Elric was a giant, always wearing a metal suit of armor."

"I don't remember anything that happened in those days. teacher said something happened to me, and Brother did something with alchemy to save my life. My real body was destroyed and we went on a journey to get our bodies back to normal."

"And you succeeded?!" It now made sense why Fullmetal's records were classified. Thinking back, "The philosopher's stone. Scar really did make it, then you took it from him and used it to restore yourselves. Do you still have it? Does it have the same backlash problem as the lesser stones? Do you know if Scar needed more than the Liore array to make it?"

Alphonse stared in confusion at my uninterrupted string of enthusiastic questions. "I did say I don't remember any of that, right?"

"I'm sorry, I got a little overexcited. Is Edward around? Maybe he can answer my questions."

"No one's seen Ed since I came back. teacher thinks he traded his life for mine, but I know he's still out there."

"How about we talk about how you know Wrath," prompted the large man.

"Right," I sighed. "I rescued him from some kind of laboratory near Ishbal. Does the name Dante mean anything to you?"

His features remained carefully impassive.

"Okay, I'm going to take that as a 'yes'/ Best I could piece together, she was experimenting on homonculi. Wrath was being taken to a cell. After we got him out of there, the plan was to bring him back to his family."

"How did you find out what he is?"

"Wrath was injured in the fighting. I saw him grow an arm back. My partner saw it too, but then he took a few heavy blows to the head and hasn't mentioned it since. If he does remember seeing it, I don't think he's put the pieces together yet."

"Yet," the man repeated.

"Who was Wrath?" I asked.

There was a long pause before he replied, "Our son."

I left it at that until Izumi returned.

"Teacher?" asked Alphonse.

"I couldn't find him. I don't think he wants to be found."

"What are we going to do about him?" asked Alphonse. "We can't just keep him here."

"Go upstairs, Al," Izumi replied.

"But..." he started to protest.

"Go!" she shot back, and the terrified boy fled. I had to calm Loki.

"I think I see why Wrath didn't want to come back here."

"You have no idea what I did to that boy," replied Izumi in a low voice tinged with regret.

"Izumi-" began the large man.

"No, Sig," she cut him off. "I have to take this chance. Wrath," the name seemed to have a bitter taste in her mouth, "he trusts you?"

"If he does, I don't intend to betray that," I replied, unsure where she was going with this.

"Good," she replied, smiling sadly. "You're looking for information on human transmutation."

"How-" I started to reply.

"Wasn't hard to piece together. You know what a homonculus is. You've come to talk to one's creator under a plausible and technically true cover story so you don't have to keep the military informed of what you find. You also recognized what my ability to transmute without a circle means. Don't try to deny it. I don't know exactly what you plan to do with that knowledge, but today's your lucky day.

"A homonculus is the result of a failed attempt at bringing a human back to life. In Wrath's case," she paused, gathering her emotional strength. She let Sig put his arm around her and continued, "our stillborn baby."

Izumi's voice cracked, then suddenly she began coughing violently. There was blood coming up. Sig just held her, and from his reaction it was clear whatever was wrong with her had been going on for some time. When she'd got the coughing under control, she continued.

"When you attempt a human transmutation, a gate appears. There are things living in it. They take pieces of you." She pointedly held up her bloody hand.

"When a homonculus is first created, it doesn't look remotely human. I didn't understand then, and so I made an awful mistake."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"So you'll understand what I'm asking you to do."

"And what's that?"

"Tell him how sorry I am that I gave him back to the Gate."

. . .

It was almost a relief that Wrath didn't meet Loki and I on our way back to the train. I had no idea what I would have said to him if he had. I just had to hope he could take care of himself until we met again.

When I arrived back in Ishbal, I found the Gunslinger Alchemist up and about, supervising the reconstruction. His broken arm was still in a sling.

"Iron Sole," he called out, waving his one good hand.

"You're doing well, I see," I greeted him.

"Not all of us can just replace damaged parts and be back to 100%."

"Sure you can. I just wouldn't recommend it." We both laughed heartily before he changed the subject.

"The kid make it home okay?"

I shook my head and tried out the half-truth I'd prepared on the train. "We got to town okay, but he ran away while I was talking to his mother. That family has some serious issues."

"Think she was involved in him ending up in that lab in the first place?"

"No," I replied after a moment's consideration. "Best guess is he ran away and got picked up by whoever's behind this."

"Poor kid, bad home, abducted, experimented on, and now all alone. Got to respect the Swarm Alchemist."

"What do you mean?"

"You aren't as good a liar as you think, Iron Sole."

I froze.

"The Colonel knew we were holding something back. We found the kid in an alchemy lab fighting animated suits of armor. Even without hearing about his strength and regeneration, the Colonel would have been within his rights to hold the boy."

"I-" I tried to say before being waved quiet.

"Don't get me wrong, the shoe covering up the transmutation circle on his foot probably saved us from answering awkward questions from the Ishbalans, but you didn't really think another State Alchemist wouldn't realize what you were doing, did you?"

"Did the Colonel say anything?" I asked, my heart pounding and my mind racing, wondering at what else they knew.

"Not a word," replied Gunslinger grinning broadly. "Even knowing the boy was subjected to alchemic experiments of potential interest to the military, he sent the kid back to his mother first chance he got. Had to have figured he'd been through enough. We did a good thing, Iron Sole." He clapped me on the shoulder and walked away.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Wrath's time may have been brief, but he'll be back.


	8. The Ishbal Reconstruction

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 8) The Ishbal Reconstruction  
by Howlin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

"Are the rumors true?" asked Melvin as soon as I got back to my work detail.

"How about a 'Hello' first," scolded Frank, who then smiled at me and handed me a shove.

Melvin ignored him. "People are saying you went to the ruins of Xerxes and got driven off by what you found there. Is it true?"

"Be reasonable, Melvin," said Ken. "Of he was allowed to tell us what it was that messed up the limbs of two of the State's living weapons less than a day's walk from where we have to sleep, don't you think he would have done so before he left?"

"Ken's right," I said. "Colonel Swarm was very clear about everything that happened out there being classified. But I don't think it would hurt to tell you one thing."

"What's that?" asked Frank.

"The Gunslinger Alchemist and I were not driven off. We got hurt in the fighting, but we won that one."

. . .

The routine drudgery of manual labor was disrupted the next day by the sound of an explosion. We rushed toward the source and found the supply train was on fire, with a crowd of young Ishbalan men pelting the wreckage with alcohol bottles and random debris.

"What happened here?" I asked while the others caught their breath from the run.

"The people of Ishbal will no longer tolerate your continued military buildup in our lands," yelled one of the men egging on the crowd.

"There are official channels for voicing grievances," said the Swarm Alchemist, his tone never shifting from his standard.

"Official channels?" demanded one of the crowd incredulously. "They still aren't taking us seriously."

The crowd moved to surround us and several members produced knives and clubs.

"You are hereby ordered to dissipate. Any refusing will be held for questioning related to the destruction of military property."

One of the men responded by taking a swing at the Colonel. Or trying to. As he wound up, the Swarm Alchemist turned his gaze in the man's direction. Spiders and scorpions burst from the ground at his feet and crawled up his pant leg, biting and stinging the whole way. The man dropped to the ground in a panic, rolling and batting at his body, screaming the whole time. The bugs scurried away from his blows, then leapt on his hands, conducting their assault with perfectly coordinated military precision, and suffering virtually no casualties.

The man continued to writhe and scream as the Swarm Alchemist stared down the crowd. No one else dared step forward. Slowly, the assembled members of the mob backed away and left.

"I can see where your name came from," I said, looking at the writhing man and wincing. As I watched, the various creatures ceased their assault and scurried off.

"Take the prisoner to a holding area," said the Swarm Alchemist to the others. Then to me, "Look over the wreckage. Determine what can be salvaged without alchemy. Keep that salvage separate from the rest, then transmute the remainder and have it sent to the base. The train itself can be sent back to East City."

"Yes, Sir," we replied together and got to work.

. . .

After we got back to the base that night, I said to my friends, "They weren't wrong about the buildup. The base has been growing ten times as fast as the actual town, and it looks like the bigwigs are trying to slow that down even further."

"I'm just glad the Colonel managed to get the crowd to back down," replied Frank.

"They backed down this time," said Ken, "but it also reminded them there are State Alchemists here. The Colonel saved some lives with that display, but he also made our job a lot harder."

"I just don't get why Command wants another Ishbal Massacre," said Melvin.

"What did happen last time?" I asked.

"You know those ruins we've been trying to rebuild?" asked Melvin. "They're what's left after Central Command sent the State Alchemists."

"All that?" I asked, thinking on how little was left.

"It wasn't Liore," said Ken, "but it was still pretty brutal."

. . .

I was called in to the Swarm Alchemist's office the next day.

"Report on the salvage situation, Major."

"Most of the damaged supplies were ones destined for the base anyway," I began. "The explosion originated within a supply of munitions."

"The supplies you salvaged will be the last assistance the Ishbalans receive until further notice. I am placing this base on full lock down."

"Sir," I protested, "just because a few criminals did some damage is no reason to punish everyone."

"The attack on the train was a distraction." The Swarm Alchemist paused to make sure he had my full attention before continuing. "At the same time as we were dealing with the attack, someone infiltrated this base and made off with the object you recovered from the ruin."

"Lee?"

"Interrogation of the prisoner recovered at the disturbance revealed two pieces of pertinent information. One, the mob was not an aware and willing participant in the theft. They were stirred up by a third party. Two, a dark haired child with an oroboros tattoo on her back was present at the initial meetings."

"Sloth. What's she trying to accomplish?"

"Unknown at this time. As the one with the most experience dealing with this individual, and one of only three persons on this base cleared to know about the artifact that was stolen, I am sending you out to investigate. Alone."

. . .

I felt the stares of the Ishbalans on me as I made my way through the tent city, the only blue uniform for miles. Even Loki had been left at base. It was supposed to make the Ishbalans feel safer. It definitely made me feel less safe.

I ran down the list of locations the Swarm Alchemist had provided, but no evidence turned up, and none of the Ishbalans were willing to talk. I was considering going back empty handed when I noticed an old man with a tattoo on his face peeking out of a tent set well away from the others. On a hunch, I approached.

"What's taking so long?" demanded a familiar voice from inside the tent.

"The soul attachment is fragile. If this isn't done carefully, he may not survive the process."

"Take your time," came a third voice. "The distraction worked. The only thing the military has in the area is one confused looking soldier."

"Don't underestimate him. That soldier is the Iron Sole Alchemist."

I took that as my cue and stepped into the tent. Lee's helmet was in the center of a complicated transmutation circle surrounded by metal ingots no doubt stolen from the supply train. Sloth was on the opposite side of the array from me. Two Ishbalans were present. One, the old man with the tattoo, the other a teenager with his hair spiked up.

"Nice to see you remember which one of us won last time we met," I said to Sloth as I entered.

"You have to stop him, Leo," came a voice from the helmet. It was higher pitched than I remembered. "He'll break my blood seal."

"It's okay, Al," said the teenager as he drew a long, curved sword covered in a glowing red alchemic diagram. "I won't let him hurt you."

"Al?" I said in confusion as Leo rushed at me. My confusion gave Leo time to close the distance before I reacted.

Fortunately for me, Leo wasn't much of a swordsman, and I was able to duck under the clumsy swing. Seeing an opening, I punched him as hard as I could in the stomach before running past.

"No time," yelled Sloth. "Activate the array!"

The old man shot the homonculus a look of disgust and pointedly looked to Leo.

"Do it," called Leo as he turned to pursue me.

I had enough distance to try alchemy, so I stomped my foot and raised a stone wall between Leo and myself as I drew my pistol.

The old man activated the transmutation circle, and the metal ingots joined together with Lee's helmet, reconstructing the suit of armor that had previously made up his body.

Unsure which way to point my gun, a red light flared behind me, and Leo cut through the wall I'd made, his alchemic weapon carving through solid stone as though it weren't even there, leaving a trail of red alchemic light in its passing.

"It's over," said Leo. "Drop the gun."

"You're surrounded, outnumbered, and outmatched," added Lee, still affecting what I now realized was an impersonation of Alphonse Elric."

"And your mutt won't be coming to save you this time," added Sloth.

They were right. I couldn't win a straight fight with them, but I had an idea to even the odds a little.

"Leo," I said over my shoulder as I kept my gun aimed in the direction of the homonculus, "these people aren't who they say they are."

"Says the State Alchemist pointing a gun at a little kid. In Ishbal. Again," replied Sloth in a mocking one.

"Yeah, you sound so threatened," I sneered at her.

"Put the gun down," repeated Leo.

"She told you that was Alphonse Elric, right?"

"I am Alphonse," said Lee.

"Alphonse Elric is back in a human body these days," I told Lee. "You're just another soul bound in the same kind of armor."

"That's easy to check," said Lee, practically rolling his eyes. "Al, remember the guy with the scar on his face?"

"Of course," said Lee, and Sloth grinned smugly.

"Which eye was fake?"

"Left," said Lee with conviction.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Leo behind me, and Sloth's smile became brittle.

"You lied to me. Both of you. Why?" Leo shot at Lee and Sloth.

Sloth shrugged. "Because it made you easier to manipulate. I'd already managed to push you to bend your objections to using alchemy using your hatred and fear of the military. A trusted friend could push you even farther, maybe even as far as using the Grand Arcanum to make a Philosopher's Stone."

"I guess that means the rouse is over," said Lee in his own voice. "In that case, it's time for some payback."

With that, Lee clapped his hands and pressed them to the ground. A stone column erupted directly in front of me and struck my midsection, throwing me backward.  
Leo severed the column with his sword and turned to charge at Lee.

The old man started scratching a transmutation circle in the dirt, but Sloth rushed at him with that inhuman speed, breaking up what he'd already drawn and interposing herself between the old man and the fighters. "Why don't you sit this one out," she said, then punched him hard enough to throw him backward.

Leo was distracted from his charge, and Lee took advantage. Lee brought a metal foot up into Leo's groin and took the sword from the teenager as he doubled over.

I'd barely regained my footing. I'd somehow managed to keep ahold of my sidearm, but the weapon would be useless against the animated suit of armor. Lee raised the sword to cut off Leo's head, and I realized there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was too unsteady to use the arrays on my shoes, and the deconstructive nature of the sword would limit my options even if I could transmute.

Then Lee collapsed mid swing, the sword's red glow going dark as he fell. Lee's helmet didn't fall with the rest of his body, and as the armor fell, Sloth was revealed behind. She gripped the helmet in one hand and pried it off her other hand. She'd phased partly through it and had destroyed the blood seal.

"Idiot," she spat as she tossed the helmet. "Kill the boy and we lose our leverage over the exile."

Sloth was pointedly ignoring my presence. And why not? She could pass through solid matter, so the gun I had trained on her was no threat. The last time we'd met, I barely managed to inconvenience her. But the last time we'd met, I didn't know what I was dealing with.

I activated the transmutation circle I'd inscribed on the grip of my pistol and fired. The bullet impacted in the middle of Sloth's body, spattering a bit of blood behind and drawing a look of shock from the homonculus.

"How?"

"Your powers aren't magical," I declared. "A homonculus is a product of alchemy, so your powers have to follow the rules of alchemy. If you can't determine the composition of an object, you can't pass through it. So all I have to do is transmute each bullet into a random substance as it's fired and your little trick stops protecting you."

"Not bad," she admitted. "What's your answer to this?" Her wound vanished in a flash of blue light, then she scooped up the dropped sword and charged at me.

I fired off three more shots, only one of them actually hitting the homonculus. That wound healed just as fast as the first.

Sloth leapt the final three feet, and came at me with an overhead chop. I threw a hand up to ward off her attack, and miraculously caught the hand she held the sword with.

The blade's transmutation circle had been dark while Sloth wielded it. Catching her swing, my hand came in contact with a red gem set in the hilt. At that slight contact, I felt a surge of power rush through me, and I knew what it was.

Before Sloth had a chance to try anything else, I used the red stone's power to deconstruct the homonculus' arm. With the stone boosting my power, I didn't even need to clap. I just willed it and the homonculus was blown across the room minus one limb, with me left holding the sword.

Sloth hit the ground and rolled, pulling herself upright with obvious effort. Leo had recovered by that point and was tending to the old man. The blast drew his gaze.

Sloth regenerated her arm and crouched as if to charge again. I pointed the sword in her direction and she stopped. I swear I saw a smirk on her face before she melted into the ground.

I pried the red stone out of the sword hilt as I went to check on Leo and the old man. Finding them both alright, I dropped the sword at Leo's feet.

"I'd hate to think of the sort of backlash you might get if you overtaxed the stone in a weapon like that," I said. "If you still want to use that against us, you'll have to learn to activate the array on your own. Of course, the only reason it's gotten to this point is that you people won't let us use alchemy to help with the reconstruction. I guess your faith is fine with alchemy as long as you're only using it to kill people instead of using it to improve lives."

A look of shame passed over Leo's face, quickly masked by one of defiance. "This sword doesn't use alchemy," he said, making no move to take it.

"I suppose that isn't a transmutation array. I saw it deconstruct-" and then I stopped. "Alchemy has three parts," I said with dawning comprehension. "Determine the composition. Break it down. Then rebuild it as something else. So it's all good if you stop at step two?"

That was when I noticed an array off to the side of the tent pinned up. There were more details visible, but I was certain this was the array Scar had used to destroy Liore.

"That's the Grand Arcanum Sloth was talking about, isn't it? The array used to make the Philosopher's Stone. What is something that sophisticated doing in Ishbal?"

The old man smirked. "You're all the same. You see a people with different hair and eyes from you and you can't imagine they have a culture as advanced as your own."

"My own culture," I responded hotly, "has no conception of alchemy at all. When an alchemist came to town, we mistook him for a miracle worker. I'm not confused by that array's presence because I think you people are fundamentally inferior. I'm confused because I didn't expect people with a taboo against something to be studying it enough to get very far."

I studied the array to calm myself. It was even more sophisticated and intricate than I'd initially realized. When I collected myself, I again addressed the old man.

"So how does it work?"

"Much the same way as the method your people use. The only difference is the scale."

"What method?" I asked.

"Human sacrifice. The lives of living humans are used as the material to produce lesser stones like the one you're holding, as well as to produce a full Philosopher Stone."

"You mentioned scale," I said as I stared at the blood red stone in my hand.

"A fallen city. An entire people lost to genocide. Destruction and tragedy on that scale is required to forge a Philosopher Stone."

"And that's Sloth's goal," I said, now comprehending the sale of the threat the homonculus represented. "I have to report in."

. . .

This was no time for half truths. Much as I wanted to shield Leo and the old man from scrutiny after the help I'd received, this was too important. I told the Swarm Alchemist everything I had just learned. The homonculus' plan to provoke the Ishbalans into making a Philosopher Stone, the attempt to gain Leo's trust by passing Lee as Alphonse Elric.

The Colonel listened to my report as dispassionately as always. When I set the red stone I had recovered from Leo's sword on the table, something extraordinary happened. The Swarm Alchemist's expression changed. Behind his all concealing glasses, his eyes widened in recognition. Every muscle in the man's body tensed. Through an act of will, the Colonel resumed his usual posture before speaking.

"We cannot tolerate another incident like Liore. I am classifying the information you have retrieved regarding the manufacture of the Philosopher Stone. The Ishbalans you encountered will be taken into custody."

"That won't solve our problem. Sloth is still out there passing out these stones and alchemy lessons. We have no way of knowing how many Ishbalans know about the Grand Arcanum. Unexplained arrests would only make them more frightened and desperate, which would be playing right into Sloth's hands."

"If you have an alternative, you may present it."

"We finish the reconstruction, and defuse the source of the Ishbalans' fear and mistrust. We make sure none of these people are desperate enough to try to create a stone."

"At our pace before the attack, the reconstruction process was projected to take three years."

"I've got a plan that could cut that down to three months."

. . .

Under my orders, a shipment of raw materials from the base were hauled back to Ishbal and placed in an open area. The crowd that gathered was more curious than angry. Once enough people were gathered, I carefully traced a transmutation circle on the ground and placed a metal ingot in the center.

The Ishbalans' suspicions increased with the obvious alchemic preparations I was making, and the crowd grew restless. Even the soldiers were confused and getting increasingly nervous. My calm, deliberate confidence managed to hold things together long enough to finish my preparations.

I made sure everyone had a good view, and activated my array. Golden light flowed through the circle, and with slow, deliberate precision, the ingot began to flake apart. Layer by layer, the metal was deconstructed as the crowd watched, and soon all that was left was a hinge carved out of the metal using pure destructive alchemy.

The crowd reaction wasn't as positive as I'd hoped.

"Why do you mock our beliefs putting on displays with alchemy?" one yelled.

"How much longer must we tolerate such blasphemy?" called another.

The crowd started to surge forward. The soldiers prepared for the worst, and I was starting to wonder how I'd live with myself if I was responsible for triggering a second Ishbal massacre. Then I heard a familiar voice in the crowd.

"That wasn't alchemy," said Leo in a clear tone that rang out over the crowd. The Ishbalans stopped, hearing one of their own speaking out in our defense. Leo continued, "Ishbala forbids alchemy because it is reshaping what God created, but this alchemist didn't reshape anything."

I smiled at Leo and continued where he left off. "This hinge was always there in the metal. All I did was break down everything that wasn't the hinge."

The crowd was listening to me now, so I went into my prepared speech. "I know this isn't a perfect solution, and I know the military has done much to earn your fear and mistrust. We're trying to find a balance. We will respect your beliefs, but proceeding as we have been wasn't working. I think making tools and parts this way could be a good compromise, but this is your land, and whatever we build here will belong to you, so if you think another solution will work better, we'll do that."

. . .

There was no fanfare. No formal recognition or acceptance of my proposal. No hoisting me up on anyone's shoulders and declaring me the savior of Ishbal. But one by one over the next few weeks, individual Ishbalans approached while I worked asking for parts or tools. By the end of the month, the scale of the projects escalated, and we were using destructive alchemy to quarry stone, dig wells and building foundations, and manufacture parts on an industrial scale.

By doing as much of our alchemy as possible out in the open, we were able to build trust, and by focusing on providing tools and raw materials, the Ishbalans had a greater feeling of ownership over the reconstruction itself, since they were the ones actually building their city now. With the people able to participate the city started growing much faster than the military base, further quieting their fears.

. . .

With the reconstruction going well, I went to speak with my commanding officer.

"Sir, I would like your permission to make a research trip to Central and interview some of the soldiers who served with the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"You have duties here assisting in the reconstruction."

"With respect, three State Alchemists is overkill for the work we're actually doing. Sloth is a major threat, and frankly, I haven't been given enough information to deal with that threat appropriately. I know Edward Elric was mixed up in all this somehow, and those who served with him might have some clue that will help us neutralized Sloth permanently."

"Fullmetal's commanding officer was implicated in a coup attempt against the late Fuhrer Bradley. To avoid an inquiry, he accepted demotion to the rank of private and went into quasi-exile in the Brigs mountains. The rest of his men were found to have been uninvolved in the plot and continue to operate out of Central Command. You may meet with the ones in Central, but you are not to waste time and risk your safety attempting to track down the Flame Alchemist."

. . .

Author's comments:  
The Ishbal reconstruction was never going to be an easy thing with all the bad blood. Scar's right arm inspired Leo to build a weapon, and that weapon inspired Iron Sole to build a bridge between Ishbal and the State, whether Central wants that bridge or not.


	9. Sloth's Secret

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 9) Sloth's Secret  
by Howlin

 

 

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Loki and I disembarked our train at Central and headed for Central Command. Navigating the bureaucracy proved more challenging than I'd hoped, and it was getting dark by the time I reached the office of Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye.

"Is there something I can do for you?" she asked.

I surveyed the room. The workspace was shared with three other men, all of them had glanced up when I arrived and resumed their owkr once I addressed Hawkeye.  
"May we speak privately?" I asked. "This is regarding classified information about a former collegue of yours."

She wordlessly led the way to an unoccupied room, then said, "What's this all about?"

"Homonculi," I said. A sharp intake of breath told me I had come to the right place, so I continued. "At least one of them is interfering with the Ishbal reconstruction. I've noted the same homonculus involved with some serial murders closer to Central."

"What makes you think this is a homonculus?" asked Hawkeye.

"The individual in question displayed several superhuman abilities including regeneration. She also had this mark tatooed on her body." I handed over a slip of paper with the Oroboros mark drawn on it.

"That settles it, then," mused Hawkeye as she stared at the page. "What do you need from me?"

"Information," I began, before being silenced by an upraised hand.

Hawkeye pulled the door open, and the tree men outside tumbled in, having obviously been pressed up against the door. As though she hadn't noticed them, Hawkeye said, "I need to take Black Hayate for a walk. Would you and your dog care to join us?" She pointed at a smaller black dog in the outer room that Loki had been getting to know while I talked to its owner.

When the four of us were well away from Central Command, walking casually down an empty street, Hawkeye said, "This isn't the first time these creatures have caused trouble in Ishbal."

I walked along silently at her side, allowing her to direct the conversation, and tell me what she thought I needed to know.

"They've been active for a very long time. Hundreds of years. Manipulating events from behind the scenes or even occasionally in plain sight. The Ishbal massacre was just one small piece.

"They're created humans, the product of failed human transmutations. They don't age unless they were specifically built to, and they can regenerate completely even from the complete destruction of their bodies.

"But for all their powers, they're incomplete. In order to first take on a human form, they need to consume a quantity of lesser Philosopher Stones, which they need to keep eating to fuel their regeneration."

"Human lives," I whispered.

"In the past, they've infiltrated the military at its highest levels, using our resources to advance their agenda. King Bradley was one of them. He ordered the Ishbal massacre in order to drive the Ishbalan people to the depths of despair needed to make a Stone."

"I heard your former commander was involved in Fuhrer Bradley's death. If he was a homonculus, how did he keep him dead?"

"Actually, I think you've already spilled more than enough of our secrets," came Sloth's voice in response as she stepped out of a nearby alley in front of us.  
Hawkeye didn't hesitate for an instant. She drew a pair of handguns and fired off five rounds dead on target before I'd processed Sloth's presence. Either Riza Hawkeye was a monster who made a habit out of shooting small children, or she had a good idea what she was dealing with.

Unfortunately, she didn't know enough. The bullets passed right through Sloth, impacting behind her as usual. Black Hayate charged at the homonculus as Loki transformed in a whirlwind of purple alchemic light.

The homonculus went to contemptuously grab the smaller dog when my shot rang out, impacting Sloth's stomach and distracting her.

Hawkeye laid down covering fire as she ordered her dog out of the fray. As Black Hayate retreated, Loki launched himself into it.

Sloth charged straight through Loki, passing through the chimera, then zig-zagging as she approached us. I couldn't keep a bead on the moving target, and Hawkeye's bullets kept passing harmlessly through the homonculus.

That was when Hawkeye swept my legs out from under me. I dropped the gun and she caught it in midair, firing off three shots into the homonculus before I hit the ground. Unfortunately, Hawkeye was no alchemist, and without the transmutation circle active, my gun was as useless as hers had been.

Sloth reached us, and smirked down at me as she passed her open hand into Hawkeye's abdomen.

"Like I said, I think we're done here," said Sloth.

"You're forgetting something," I said to the homonculus. Then I turned a foot down and activated the transmutation circle on my shoe. Purple light accompanied a column of earth beneath Sloth's feet launching itself straight up. I shifted the composition of the column's first player a few times to keep Sloth from just phasing through it. Sloth wasn't expecting that, and so she didn't have time to do Hawkeye any damage before she went flying.

That bought us some time, but the fight wasn't over yet. I regained my footing and drew my backup pistol.

"The gun hurts her because I'm transmuting the bullets. She can pass through any solid matter as long as she knows what it is."

Hawkeye nodded, and as Sloth hit the ground a few yards away, Hawkeye stepped behind me and held my gun forward in both hands with her arms around me. The transmutation circle on the handle was left visible by her grip.

I took hold of her hands and activated the array. Now Hawkeye's perfectly aimed shots were having an impact. Sloth tried to rush forward, but found her progress stunted when her kneecaps were blown out. When she regenerated those, Hawkeye blinded the homonculus with a bullet in each eye. She reloaded while Sloth healed that, then inflicted a dozen more crippling injuries before Sloth could get her feet under her.

I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the creature as she raged helplessly, only to be shot down over and over again. It was a full minute of the same before Sloth melted into the ground, broken and defeated. But still not dead.

Hawkeye returned my gun and Loki resumed his normal form. Then Hawkeye finished what she'd been going to tell me before.

"There is only one way to kill a homonculus so it can't come back. Every homonculus is based on a person. The physical remains of that person are their weakness. If they touch them, they are paralyzed. If they're killed in view of those remains, they stay dead.

"I think I know who that homonculus was based on. Speak to a woman in Central's records named Scheska. Ask here where the remains of Nina Tucker were found."  
I hadn't made the connection before. Aside from her hair color, Sloth was a dead ringer for the little girl I'd met while studying for the State Alchemy exam. They could even both walk through solid walls. I'd thought I dreamed that.

As my mind raced to put the pieces in place, my legs got unsteady. Loki and Hawkeye kept me from toppling over, and helped me into a slightly more dignified position up against a wall. It was in that position that it hit me.

"She followed me here. We're both still in danger. She can bunt us at her leasure, and it took both of us just to drive her off."

"I know people who can help," said Hawkeye.

"Good," I replied, my mind racing. "You get in touch with them. Tell them what's going on. I'll act as a distraction."

. . .

I didn't want to lead Sloth to Scheska's doorstep, so I slipped out of my hotel room early in the morning, leaving Loki behind along with a transmuted dummy that would fool someone observing at a distance.

The mousy, brown-haired woman was staring in despair at a pile of paperwork taller than she was when I entered the room.

"Excuse me, are you Scheska?" I asked.

"Yes, that's right," she replied politely. "I'm sorry, Major, but I don't have the time to reproduce any more case files at the moment. I already have a three month backlog of records to prepare." She gestured at the stack on her desk.

"I don't actually need anything reproduced. Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye indicated you might be able to help me with another matter. It shouldn't take too much time, I promise."

"Oh, Lieutenant Hawkeye sent you." She perked up in recognition. "what exactly did you need, Major?"

"The Sewing Life Alchemist, Shao Tucker performed an illegal alchemic experiment on his four year old daughter a few years ago." Half a dozen heads in the shared office space looped up in surprise at my words. Good. The Sewing Life Alchemist's crimes should shock people. "I need to look over the girl's remains."

"I'm sorry, Major," said Scheska genuinely apologetically, "but Nina Tucker was killed by the serial killer Scar shortly after the incident came to light. There were very few remains left."

"Were any of them saved? Even a hair of blood sample would be of help," I pressed.

Scheska shook her head. "I'm sorry, Major. I don't think they were even collected to begin with. Aside from a large blood stain on one of the alley walls, her body had been completely broken down with alchemy."

A spark of hope. "Can you tell me which alley?"

"Well, yes, but I doubt it will do your investigation much good."

"Please, I have to see for myself if there's anything left there."

"Of course, Major," said Scheska, jotting down an address and handing it to me. "Good luck."

. . .

I retrieved Loki before making my way to the alley Scheska indicated. The large bloodstain had faded somewhat over the years, but it was still plainly visible to anyone looking for it.

"Let's see how cocky she is now that we have this," I said to Loki.

Loki's hair stood on end, and the chimera growled back at me menacingly, as a high pitched whistle pierced the air.

"What's wrong, boy?" I said as soothingly as I could.

Once the violet light of Loki's transformation faded, the chimera attacked. I stomped the ground and a section of pavement leapt up to my hand, glowing with the purple light of my transmutation. Solidifying into a pole, I caught the weapon and drove it into Loki's chest.

I rolled backward, using the pouncing chimera's momentum against it, and managed to throw Loki over me and into a wall. Fortunately not the one with the bloodstain.

"Loki, stop-" I started to call out, but another whistle pierced the air, and the massive chimera charged me. I transmuted a short wall between us, but Loki just darted around it and slammed into me from the side. I was thrown hard into a wall, dropping my staff. Loki turned about, and his heavy, reptilian tail struck me before I'd recovered from the last hit.

Darkness started to close around my vision as another whistle came, and Loki instantly relaxed. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Loki, returned to his dog form, whimpering and nuzzling at me.

. . .

When I came to, somewhat surprised to be alive after that, I was no longer in the alley. I was laid out on a floor with a pillow resting under my head. I felt the absence of my shoes and gun before I cautiously opened my eyes.

The room was brightly lit, and painted in soft pastels. Children's books and toys were strewn about. In one corner, a little girl with brown hair in twin braids laid on her stomach drawing. When I woke, however, she dropped her crayons and rushed over to me.

"Aw you okay?" she asked.

Aside from the hair and eye color, the girl was a perfect twin for Sloth. I crawled backward, terrified and reached for my backup pistol, which had also apparently been removed.

The girl cocked her head curiously at my behavior and said, "Don't you wecognize me? We expwowed my owd house togethew."

There was none of Sloth's menace in her. No mocking smirk, no subtle posture shits daring me to make another futile attack. This wasn't Sloth. This was the girl I thought I'd dreamed when studying for the State Alchemy Exam.

"Of course I recognize you, Nina," I said, calming myself. "Where am I?' I looked around the room and froze. Lurking on the far side of the room was a massive, brown furred creature. It stood upright almost too tall for the room, and had an upside-down human face.

Nina smiled, reached into my pocket, and retrieved my silver pocketwatch. "Does this mean you'we a State Awchemist wike my daddy now?"

"That's right, Nina," whispered the creature.

Nina smiled at it, apparently oblivious to its strangeness. Then she turned back to me, "Conwaduwations!"

I forced myself to calm down and replied as pleasantly as I could, "Thank you. Did you ever find Alexander?"

"Who?" asked Nina.

I was about to reply when the creature whispered, "The two of you can talk more later. Him and daddy have some work to do."

Nina looked crestfallen, but nodded. She bobbed a bow in my direction and said, "Come back soon."

I retrieved my watch and warily followed the creature out of the room. The hallway outside was dimply lit and painted an industrial dark grey. The contrast with Nina's bright pastel room was unnerving.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"An abandoned alchemy lab in Central," he whispered back. "Sloth brought you here unconscious."

"Who are you?" I asked, trying to be tactful.

"My name is Shao Tucker."

"You're supposed to be dead. What happened to you?"

"After Nina was killed, my execution was faked by the homonculi. I was brought here to work for them. My current state was the result of an alchemic backlash I suffered when trying to remake Nina."

"So the Sewing Life Alchemist ended up a poorly put together chimera himself. Poetic justice after what you did to your wife and daughter."

"I've been working to make amends," he whispered sadly.

"What's the deal with Nina and Sloth?" I asked, backing off from my accusatory tone.

"Sloth was the result of an earlier attempt. She turned on me shortly after her creation. Now she's holding me here to work for her and keeping Nina as a hostage."

"And now I've been added to the forced labor pool."

"It isn't all bad. She's promised to let me use the Philosopher Stone when it's finished. We can both restore our bodies."

"In exchange for another Liore? Not worth it."

Shao smiled. "There's more than one way to make the stone."

With that, he led me into another room. The floor and ceiling ere marked with the Grand Arcanum array circumscribed by a seven point transmutation circle. Seven tanks of red liquid were arranged along these points.

"What is this?" I asked.

"This room was set up by the Crystal Alchemist, Tim Marcho, to create these lesser stones." Shao opened the tap on one of the tanks, allowing a small glob of the red liquid to fall to the floor, where it assumed a solid form identical to the red stones I'd previously encountered.

Shao continued, "Condemned criminals from the prison next door would be taken here and used as ingredients to produce these. Edward Elric came up with a way to use this lesser stone material to transmute a complete Philosopher Stone. The seven point array was his design."

"If you have all the pieces here like this, why haven't you made the stone already?"

"I'm not strong enough to perform the transmutation myself. I've reproduced Edward's array, but I'm not strong enough to activate it. You were in Liore. You stood up against the power of a Philosopher Stone's creation. It isn't exactly the same, but I'm hoping you have the strength to activate the array."

"I don't see how this method is any different from the one Scar used. How many people died to make this stone material?"

"The difference is that they're already dead. You can give that sacrifice some meaning by finishing the stone."

I took a long moment, then nodded. "I want to go over both arrays in detail, and inspect the ingredients myself."

"Of course. There is a second storage tank of red water upstairs that will be involved in the transmutation. Edward's theory called for an explosive compression of the red water from both sources into a single point."

Shao watched passively as I went over the arrays in this room, and remained behind when I went upstairs to examine the other tank.

Rather than the massive cylindrical tanks in the room below, this one was rectangular and nearly filled the room. Crimson light shone from the liquid inside. I looked over the dimensions and tapped the glass. When I did, I noticed something was wrong.

I scratched a transmutation circle into the glass using my automail toe, and caused the glass on that spot to bubble inward. In less than an inch, it contacted another pane of glass and merged with it, allowing me a transparent peephole.

Only a thin layer on the tank's outer surface was actually red water. The interior contained a dozen frightened and confused men in prison jumpsuits.

I stormed downstairs, furious at having been lied to. I caught sight of the Sewing Life Alchemist and shouted, "There are people in that tank! If I hadn't gone to check, if I'd just activated the array like you wanted-"

"You wouldn't have known you were killing them, so you wouldn't have that on your conscience after you made the stone," said Sloth, stepping out from behind one of the tanks. Shao backed away at her approach. "Now you'll know full well what you're doing when you finish the stone."

"I'm not going to kill those people."

"But they're already dead," replied Sloth with a smirk. "If you don't finish the transmutation, I'll just kill then anyway. Either way, they die."

"That's not the same thing," I replied weakly.

"Isn't it? Option one, they all die and you get the stone to fix yourselves. Option two, they all die and you get nothing out of it."

"They're no threat to anyone. I can't take a life in cold blood."

Sloth crossed the distance between us in the blink of an eye. I reflexively brought my arms up, which she passed right through. She put her right arm inside my chest.

"Does this solve that problem of yours?" she asked with annoyance.

Calmer than I expected to me, I said, "You won't kill me. Even if I refuse, I'm still your best chance to make the Stone. If I die, you won't get the stone. If you lock me up, I might change my mind, and you won't risk giving up that chance."

"You're right," said Sloth withdrawing her hand. "I do need you alive. I don't need him, though." She turned her head towards Shao and grinned wickedly.

"But i've been helping you!" whispered Shao urgently as he raised his fur covered hands in supplication.

"When I held my tongue, Sloth's eyes opened in epiphany. "Your mutt's still alive."

"Loki? What does he have to do with this?"

"Tucker's daughter was playing with him when I came in. Maybe I'll show her some of his tricks." She pursed her lips, and I heard that high pitched whistle from when Loki turned on me. Sloth melted through the floor.

I ran for the exit, with Shao having dropped to all fours and doing the same.

"You check Nina's room," whispered Shao. "I'll check the chimera pens."

I nodded and we split up. I ran down the hall as fast as I could barefoot, back to the room I'd woken up in. When I arrived, the room was empty. Turning back the way I'd come, I ran to follow Shao. I turned off into the first open door in that direction and saw Loki and Nina wrestling playfully. Shao was standing just inside the doorway, wringing his oversized hands.

When I entered the room, Loki stopped playing, lowered his head in a submissive pose, and started to whine as he approached me. The chimera obviously felt bad about having been made to attack me.

"What's wong?" asked Nina.

"Everything's going to be fine," lied Shao as I approached the chimera.

"I'm not bad, boy. Come here," I said to Loki, who brightened up immediately and nearly tacked me in joy, licking me and nuzzling enthusiastically.

I held the chimera and reassured him and shot a look to Shao who moved over to Nina.

Then that whistle came again.

"Don't listen, boy," I said, covering Loki's ears.

Loki whined in shame and pain before his hackles rose.

I leapt back from him as he began the process of breaking down nearby matter to increase his size and transform into his hybrid form.

"Is someone huwting youw dog?" asked Nina as Loki tried and failed to fight the control whistle.

Now covered in green armored scales and his golden leonine mane, Loki looked menacing to me for the first time in a long time. Three hundred pounds of muscle and reinforced bone that I couldn't stop a few hours ago when I was fully armed, I now had to deal with unarmed and off balance.

I leapt at the chimera anyway when he turned toward Nina. Landing on his broad back, I gripped Loki's golden mane and tried to draw his attention by pulling on it as hard as I could.

Loki didn't even pause to try to shake me off. Instead, he leapt at Nina with his fangs flashing, and a vicious growl escaping his throat. Nina screamed and I held on to the chimera kicking his side with my automail leg in the hope that it might distract him.

Loki caught Nina's collar in his fans and, in response to another whistle, took off down the hall. Shao scrambled to keep up, and Nina cried out in terror the whole way. When we arrived back in the stone room, Loki stopped and bucked, throwing me head over heels across the room. I landed hard, but scrambled to my feet.

"How is she controlling him?" I demanded of the Sewing Life Alchemist.

"I originally designed it to respond with instinctual behaviors to a set of tones. Sloth made me give her the details a long time ago."

"And in your mutated body, you can't reproduce those tones and get control away from her."

"Please, don't let her kill Nina."

"Wait, isn't she a homonculus too? Won't she just regenerate?"

"Nina's a later experiment. She's more human than Sloth."

"If I could see her, one good kick to the throat would stop her from whistling for a bit at least."

Another whistle came, and Loki tossed the terrified girl up in the air, his jaws snapping in preparation to bite the child in half.

"Wait!" I yelled out. At another tone, Loki just caught Nina. I still couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from. "I'll do it," I said, defeated.

I slowly walked over to the prepared transmutation circle. Nina still screaming in panic, Loki's powerful jaws could crush her at any moment. I considered using the red water in the tanks to fight him, but without knowing where Sloth was, odds were that she'd notice and signal Loki to kill Nina before I could touch the tank.

I sank to my knees in front of the array and was inches from activating it when an explosion behind me blew the door off its hinges.

With a confident stride and serious expression, a giant of a man with a thick, well groomed mustache and a nearly bald head, adorned with a single curly blond lock entered. He wore the blue uniform of the State Military, and the silver chain in his pocket identified him as a state alchemist.

"Shao Tucker," boomed the large man, "formerly known as the Sewing Life Alchemist. I knew you were involved in this somehow."

Taking the distraction as the answer to my silent prayers that it was, I jumped for one of the red water holding tanks. My hand made contact, and I stomped my automail foot on the ground, transmitting the alchemic energy through my body. Red arcs of light shot along the ground towards Loki, terminating just beneath the chimera as a column of stone shot up at the chimera's chest hard enough to break one of his reinforced ribs.

Loki dropped Nina, and yelped in pain as the girl ran to Shao.

"Watch out!" I called to my rescuer. "There's a homonculus around somewhere!"

"Fear not, Marcus Oren!" declared the man as he produced a small piece of rust colored brick. "Lieutenant Hawkeye gave me the details."

Shao placed his arm on Nina's shoulder in a comforting gesture, and a red glow erupted from beneath her shirt. Nina's eyes went blank, then her brown hair turned black. As Nina's clothes fell through her body revealing Sloth's black outfit underneath, I could see the source of the red light was the oroboros tattoo on her back.

"It's time to go," whispered Shao to sloth.

The large man punched the ground with his spiked gauntlets bearing transmutation circles. A ring of inward facing spikes surrounded Shao and Sloth accompanied by arcs of yellow light.

"You won't escape Alex Louis Armstrong, the Strongarm Alchemist. Go ahead and try to pass through those spikes. Each one contains a hydrogen activated explosive. You can prevent your body from interacting with what you pass through, but when it leaves contact with you? A drop of sweat evaporating, the moisture in your breath. That's all it'll take."

Sloth smirked, took Shao by the hand, and started to sink through the floor with him. I stomped my foot and put a stop to that, shifting the material composition of the floor every few seconds, causing the entire room to be bathed in the red glow of a continuous transmutation.

Shao whistled, and it was suddenly obvious to me it'd been him doing that all along. Loki hurled himself across the room at me, and would have hit me like a freight train despite his slight limp had the Strongarm Alchemist not intervened.

Rather than try to transmute the constantly shifting floor, Armstrong tossed a piece of the exploded door that marked his entry into the air and punched it towards Loki. The random debris was transmuted into an artillery shell and struck the chimera.

The explosion had shattered the scales on Loki's left side and burned him severely. His left foreleg was broken and useless, and he'd been thrown well clear of me.

A burst of red light came from Shao, as he used a red stone to deconstruct the spikes imprisoning him. Loki charged at the Strongarm Alchemist, his injuries slowing him, but not stopping him.

Shao and Sloth disappeared through a nearby wall and Armstrong hefted another piece of debris to attack Loki with.

"Stop!" I called out desperately. "Please, don't kill him! He isn't in control of his actions!"

Then the Strongarm Alchemist did something unexpected. He dropped his piece of debris. "Such compassion," he cried out with tears streaming down his face. "Such courage! Very well, I shall subdue the creature nonfatally." He threw off his shirt revealing a sculpted physique more at home on a Greek statue than on a living person. "Using the grappling techniques that have been passed down the Armstrong family line for generations!"

Alex Louis Armstrong sidestepped the charging chimera and wrapped an arm around Loki's neck, lifting him off his feet in a single motion. Loki twisted in the grip, his flailing tail shattering one of the red water containers. A claw got dangerously close to Armstrong's stomach, but the Strongarm Alchemist brought a knee up striking the chimera's damaged and unarmored side.

I scooped up a handful of the solidified red stones and went to assist Armstrong, but he shooed me off. "I can handle things here. You need to stop them from escaping."

I nodded and turned to the wall Shao and Sloth had passed through. I charged it, using the red stones to deconstruct the wall as I went. The pair were nowhere to be seen, so I stomped and opened a hole in the floor and dropped down to the next level. I prioritized speed, blowing out any wall I came across as I raced through the facility looking for the route the pair had used to escape.

I unexpectedly burst through an exterior wall a full story above the ground, and with no time to get my bearings, I hit the ground hard. A uniformed soldier that I recognized from Hawkeye's office stood over me.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I gasped for breath after my fall and managed to choke out, "Where did they go?"

"Where did who go?" he asked, baffled.

"A chimera and a little girl."

"I didn't-" he began before being interrupted by another soldier rushing around the building.

"The targets just exited the north side. We didn't have time to stop them before they went underground."

"We've lost them then," I spat.

At that point, Alex Louis Armstrong emerged from the building, still shirtless, carrying an unconscious Loki over his shoulder. The transmutation circle that allowed Loki to change had been damaged, leaving him locked in his combat form.

"Set him down here," I said. Then to the other soldiers, "There are people still inside. Supposedly condemned prisoners. They need to be removed from the building and taken into custody."

"You heard the Major," emphasized the Strongarm Alchemist when the two men hesitated.

As they scurried off, I went over to Loki and started examining his injuries. While I did so, I filled in my fellow State Alchemist. "They got away."

"At least we managed to get you out before they could complete their work."

Loki's injuries were bad, but I knew this chimera's structure and composition like the back of my hand. I held one of the red stones over his unconscious form and carefully reconstructed the damaged tissue. "Thank you for that. And for sparing Loki."

"We should get somewhere safe and exchange information," suggested Armstrong.

I finished repairing Loki's body, and the restored transmutation circle on his body kicked in, returning him to the form of a brown dog. Using the stone, I severed the neurological connections between the auditory cortex and the instinctive response that Shao had used to control Loki. He would not be turning us against each other again.

Loki woke, and frantically sought comfort and reassurance from me. I petted him affectionately, then addressed Armstrong. "You're right. Let's go."

. . .

In a civilian residence, away from the main military command structure, I informed Armstrong, Hawkeye, and four other soldiers they assured me could be trusted what had transpired in the laboratory.

"I thought all this business was done with when the Roy and Fullmetal went after the homonculi and their maser," said the blonde haired soldier with a cigarette named Lieutenant Havok.

"Looks like they missed one," replied the larger, red haired soldier named Breda.

"What exactly happened before?" I asked.

"Fullmetal put it all together," said Havok. "Fuhrer Bradley was a homonculus under the control of an alchemist we later learned was named Dante. She was using the homonculi to seed chaos and discontent and manipulate alchemists into making a Philosopher Stone that she could take.

"The Fuhrer had Ishbal reduced to a ruin, and that eventually did the trick. An Ishbalan we call Scar used some kind of transmutation circle in Liore to kill a lot of people and make a stone. Scar didn't survive, and Edward and Alphonse got ahold of the stone.

"They went to confront the homonculi, and everything we've managed to piece together since says they won, at a price. The stone was used up, Alphonse lost his memory, and Edward hasn't been seen since.

"Meanwhile, the Flame Alchemist went after the Fuhrer, hoping to put a stop to all this once and for all. We thought it was all over after that."

"So this is what all the fighting in Liore was about?" I said.

"From the beginning," added Havok. "Cornello was put in place and backed by the homonculi."

"I don't think the Sewing Life Alchemist is involved with the homonculi's old master," said Armstrong in an uncharacteristically subdued tone.

"I agree," I said after a moment's thought. "He was calling the shots in the lab, and Sloth was following his orders. If he'd had backing, he would have been able to put up a better defense."

"What about the lab itself?" asked Hawkeye. "It would take more than one man to get Laboratory Five operational again."

"But remember," said the grey haired Warrant Officer Falman, "the old Fuhrer's men took over the cleanup after we rescued Ed and Al from there. We didn't know who he was at the time, and after we found out, we assumed taking him out had settled things."

"I get it," said Breda. "Tucker knew about the old sites and the homonculi's old plans from when he was working for them. Now that their master's out of the picture, he's running his own version of the same plan."

"I presume that piece of brick came from the alley?" I asked Armstrong.

"It did," replied Hawkeye, producing a second. "We have several more. Take this one with you. Sloth's targeted you in the past, so you're the most likely to run into her again."

. . .

Loki and I boarded the train headed back to Ishbal after confirming with the small conspiracy that we'd pass on any new information about the homonculi, Shao Tucker, or their whereabouts we managed to find.

I was starting to withdraw into a quiet contemplation to process all that had happened when I heard the conductor call out the next stop as Xenotime. It had been on my list of places Fullmetal had visited. By this point, I'd realized that to restore my body the way Alphonse had been would require creating a Philosopher Stone, which I was unwilling to do. I figured there would be nothing more to learn there, and almost decided to ignore the town and just move on.

Then I remembered how often I found Sloth interfering with alchemists in the places the Elrics had visited. If she hadn't gotten to whoever the target was here, I had to warn them. If she had, I would have to stop them.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Thus the big bad of this story is finally revealed. One little loose end from Ed and Al's adventures in the series now comes back to bite everyone in the ass.


	10. The Philosopher's Flower

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 10) The Philosopher's Flower  
by Howlin

 

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Xenotime was a mining town in the grips of a depression. The buildings were poorly maintained and all the colors were faded and washed out. The town was surrounded by sparse forest and a few orchards.

I asked around about any local alchemists and was directed to a lemon orchard owned by a man named Belsio. I knocked at the door and waited, but no answer came. Loki started sniffing around and got agitated.

"What is it, boy?" I asked, placing a placating hand on his head.

Loki wuffed and took off at a dead run into the orchard, pausing to sniff the air and let me catch up. The dog led the way among the lemon trees to a group of four people harvesting.

There was a blonde haired young man at the top of a ladder, a young boy wearing a green cap, a brown haired girl, and an older man with wavy black hair. The older man shifted his basket of fruit to one hand to wave a greeting to me.

Loki excitedly sniffed around the two kids, making the boy nervous. The girl greeted Loki delighted, but quickly feel into a coughing fit from the excitement.

"Loki, come!" I ordered, and the dog ran to my side. "I'm so sorry. He isn't usually this excitable."

After confirming that the girl's cough was easing, the older man replied, "No harm done. My name is Belsio. This is Russel, Fletcher, and Elisia." He gestured towards the young man, the boy, and he girl respectively. "What brings a State Alchemist out to our old, washed up gold mining town?"

"I'm here following up on a previous visit by Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric."

Russel dropped off the ladder and strolled toward me. "Has there been any word about what happened to him?"

"I'm afraid not. This visit is regarding his last trip here."

"Last time he was here..." mused Russel for a moment. "So, he did leave a message for someone to come look at our research! We're finally going to get the recognition we deserve."

. . .

Russel and Fletcher led the way back to the farmhouse, leaving Belsio and Elisia in the orchard. Once inside, the brothers turned to each other, practically giddy with excitement.

"We should take him down to see the lab and go over the process," suggested Fletcher.

"No, we should show off the result first."

Russel opened a drawer and retrieved a small, rectangular box. He held it out to me and opened it. Inside there were half a dozen glowing red crystals.  
"Where did you get those?"

"We produced them in the lab downstairs," said Russel. "After Mugiar's mansion collapsed and we lost our backing, the development process slowed down a lot, but we've kept at it and had some real breakthroughs."

"It's better this way," said the younger brother. "Too many people were getting hurt before."

"Let me show you what it can do. I'm sure the military will be interested."

Russel withdrew one of the stones, held it in his open palm, and touched a potted plant. Red arcs of alchemic light arced from his hand and the plant grew from a small seedling into a small tree in seconds.

"You made these stones?" I demanded angrily.

"Well, yeah," replied Russel, a bit confused.

"I'm placing you both under arrest!"

"Arrest?" asked Fletcher. "Not again!"

"Don't worry, Fletcher," said Russel, guiding his brother behind him protectively. "I won't let anything happen to you." Then to me, "Do you honestly think you can just barge in here, steal our research, and lock us up to cover it up?"

"I don't answer to murderers," I spat, sparing a glance at the blood red stones he was still holding.

Fletcher flinched at the accusation and started to say, "But we've been refining he process and making it safer-"

"Don't bother, Fletcher," cut off Russel. "This guy's spoiling for a fight. Lucky for him, he's found one." With that, Russel slapped his palm against a wall, using the red stone to transmute a nest of a half dozen spiked tentacles, which struck towards me like spears.

I stomped a foot and flipped a rectangular section of floor upright. A purple wave of alchemic energy washed up it, crystallizing the carbon in the wood. Russel's spears impacted on my shield and they shattered against the impenetrable barrier.

"It's going to take more than a couple common killers with a red stone to take the Iron Sole Alchemist," I said. Then, duplicating Russel's transmutation, I stomped and launched my own set of spiked tentacles at him, diamond hardening the tips of mine.

Russel dodged forward, ducking under the spears and coming at me bodily. Violet light swirled beside me as Loki took his combat form. As usual, the transmutation broke down some of the ground beneath his feet to provide the necessary mass. Unfortunately, the floor of this building wasn't very thick, so as soon as Loki's body had changed, he immediately fell through the newly formed hole in the floor with a loud crash. I looked over to where Loki had vanished and took my eyes off my opponent.

Russel's punch landed square on my face, tossing me backward a few feet before I fell limply to the ground only semi-conscious. I tried to get up as he approached, but my limbs wouldn't respond. Russel pulled m pocketwatch off my belt and smiled.

"With this, getting access to funds and books should be easy. As for you," Russel grabbed the handle of a drawer and transmuted it into a knife.  
"Brother, no!" called Fletcher. "Killing him won't help anything."

Before the brothers could debate any further, Loki leapt out of the basement. Faster than I could process in my current state, Loki grabbed me in his teeth by the back of my shirt, slammed his club-like tail into Russel, knocked down the door with his powerful forepaws, and took off away from the farmhouse at a dead run.

. . .

"Not our best showing, was it boy?" I said to Loki after I'd recovered from that blow to the head. "That's what had you so agitated earlier, isn't it? You could smell the alchemic byproducts of the stone on them. Well, we're not going to let them get away with this. Besides, the Swarm Alchemist'll kill me for losing that watch."

Loki and I returned to the farmhouse and approached cautiously. Not too much time had passed, and they'd want to destroy any evidence before skipping town. They'd be expecting us, so to maintain the element of surprise, I transmuted a shallow tunnel. We would be entering straight through their basement lab's wall without any visible approach at all.

Loki was already transformed when I opened the wall with alchemy and took the two brothers completely by surprise. The lab was more cluttered than I was expecting. Notebooks and research journals were strewn across desks and tables. Potted plants were being used as paperweights, and there were several tanks of red water. Russel and Fletcher wore face masks, and were frantically packing papers when I arrived.

"I'll be wanting that watch back," I announced as I opened the wall.

Russel grabbed a pen and transmuted it into a sword. In response, I drew my sidearm.

A burst of red light accompanied the transmutation of a large tree trunk to reseal my opening. I quickly deconstructed it, and found the brothers had taken advantage of the delay and had transmuted a wreaking ball that swung down at my head.

I ducked the ball and rushed forward into the lab. Loki cleared the tables in a single bound and landed on Russel. Russel's blade shattered against Loki's scales as he tried futilely to fend off the snarling chimera.

With Loki handling Russel, I turned toward Fletcher, and saw him holding a red stone defensively in my direction.

"Two can play at that game," I said, and I popped the lid off a tank of red water. I reached in to grab a portion and Fletcher's eyes went wide. The red water didn't crystallize like I expected, and I stared confusedly at my soaked arm. The equally unexpected fumes threw me for a loop, and I barely managed to say, "What is this?" before losing my balance and falling to the ground.

Fletcher ran toward me and held his red stone towards my arm, and the red water staining it started to disappear under his transmutation. Loki looked back when I collapsed and Russel took advantage of the chimera's distraction, transmuting chains onto Loki.

"You idiot!" called out Russel as he darted out from under the immobilized chimera. "What were you thinking?" He quickly resealed the container as Fletcher continued to transmute away the residue.

My head started to clear, and I said, "This isn't the red water I thought it was."

"Don't talk," said Fletcher. "Not until we get you a mask or get the last of it off your body. Try not to breathe too deep."

I submitted to the treatment, and my calm reassured Loki, who relaxed and transformed back to his dog form, which was small enough to slip out of Russel's chains. When, at length they had finished, I spoke.

"I thought this was a different substance. Another alchemic amplifier made using live humans in the forging process."

The brothers looked at each other and sighed.

"We should have realized," said Russel. "You're talking about the contingency."

"I tried to tell you," added Fletcher. "We've been refining the process. No one has to get hurt to make the stone if we're careful."

"Look, I'm sorry about all this," I said. "Can you walk me through the process?"

"Told you we should have started there, brother," said Fletcher with a wan smile.

"Sure," Russel said to me, "but first, we should clean up this mess we made before Belsio gets home."

I looked over the wreckage of the house, a testament to our alchemic battle, and started transmuting things back the way we'd found them alongside Russel and Fletcher.

. . .

I was invited to stay for dinner, and the two brothers happily went over their work. A purely chemical alchemic amplifier produced from a toxic cocktail of substances. If handled properly, not one human life would need to be spent to produce it.

They reluctantly talked about the contingency, a method that involved introducing the toxic substance to the drinking water of pregnant women. They vocally denied ever having taken part in it, nor had their father, Nash Tringam, who had discovered the red water in the first place.

After a delicious lemon pie as desert, the Tringam brothers brought e down to their lab to show off the products of their research.

"The big breakthrough was when we discovered that a similar biological refinement process could happen in plants," said Russel proudly.

"After Mr. Mugyar died," noted Fletcher, "my brother and I focused on safety and efficiency."

"Not every plant crystallizes the red water the same way. Fletcher and I experimented with hybrids until finally perfecting this." Russel indicated a thick stemmed flower with white petals with thin black stripes. "We're calling it, the Philosopher's Flower."

Fletcher grabbed a vial of red water and said, "The petals are an indicator. When they're white, nothing has happened." He poured the vial over the plant's roots. Almost immediately, the petals started to turn pink. "This hybrid absorbs and metabolizes red water quickly. The more red water it absorbs, the darker its petals."

The brothers brought me to another flower. This one's petals were almost as red as the stone itself. "This one's ready to be harvested," said Russel. The young man produced a gardening knife and slit the plan's stem vertically. Separating the fibers with a gloved hand, Russel extracted a thumb-sized red crystal.

Fletcher used a transmutation circle inscribed in the soil to repair the damage to the plant. As he did so, the petals turned blue. "The crystallization process takes about three days using our hybrid. Using alchemy to try to accelerate the plant's metabolism disrupts the process. That can detoxify the red water faster, but at the price of rendering it alchemically neutral."

"I hope you two realize how important what you've accomplished here is," I said. "This is the biggest discovery in alchemy since the transmutation circle. The new avenues of research these stones could open up..." At that moment, I realized that this was the key to finally accomplishing my own goal. "A philosopher stone analogue that can be inexpensively mass produced and that doesn't require a human sacrifice."

"I take it this means you're interested," said Russel smugly.

"I'd like to duplicate your results in my lab. If it works, this will change everything. I'm sure my superiors will want to fund your further research. You might consider taking the State Alchemy certification."

"Now, we get the credit for the discovery," started Russel. "No one's going to be claiming-"

I cut him off, "The Tringam Method is going to find its way into the textbooks."

. . .

I took copies of the research notes on the red water with me back to Ishbal along with a few seeds for their Philosopher's flower. On the way, I placed some orders for the precursor materials to make red water.

The Swarm Alchemist listened dispassionately as I related the fact that Shao Tucker was alive and responsible for the troubles we'd been encountering. He accepted, without comment, the copies of the Tringam brothers' notes I'd made for him, and when prompted acknowledged that they'd receive proper credit for their discovery. The only point I held back was the secret to permanently killing a homonculus.

"Have you taken advantage of your travel time to prepare for your recertification?" asked the Swarm Alchemist when I'd finished.

"Recertification? Has it been a year already?"

"Eleven months," noted the Swarm Alchemist. "In one month, a report will need to be on the Fuhrer's desk detailing the results of your research under the program and justifying your continued value to the military."

"I see. I'll get that prepared immediately."

. . .

I took Loki, Frank, Melvin, and Ken out into the desert, well away from both the Ishbalans and the military base. Each of us hauled containers of chemicals that had arrived for me that morning.

"Shouldn't you be writing up your recertification reports instead of dragging us out to the middle of nowhere?" asked Ken.

"This experiment involves significant waiting time," I told Ken. "I'd like to have it set up and running while I put together my report."

"Is there a reason you couldn't do this back at the base?" asked Melvin.

"The chemicals I'll be working with are extremely toxic. I'm planning on keeping them safely contained, but if there's an accident, I don't want this lab anywhere near other people."

"Well, I don't think you'll need to worry about that out here," said Frank.

"True, this is probably far enough. Wait here."

I set down my container and stepped away from the others. After giving the sand dunes one last once-over, I stomped my foot. Violet lightning accompanied the emergence of a squat cylinder surrounded by steps leading up it. I climbed those steps and confirmed the presence of a spiral staircase leading down. About halfway down the steps, I scribed a transmutation circle on the wall and continued down.

Holding a flashlight in front of me, I confirmed that the underground structure had been transmuted without incident. Basic stone benches, tables, and bookshelves were, for the moment, the only furnishings. Places to run wires and install a generator were set up, and I'd be bringing that equipment and furniture out here after the initial setup. The quartz holding tanks for the red water were intact and properly sealed.

My inspections complete, I headed back up and got the men to carry down the supplies.

"Is this a living space?" asked Frank on seeing the layout of the lab.

"I'm planning on more than one all nighter, and as much as I would just love hiking here and back every day, I'm thinking it's more reasonable to have the place set up as a comfortable living space.

"Well then," said Melvin, "that means we're going to have to help you decorate."

. . .

Over the next four days, I cultivated a few dozen Philosopher's Flowers and produced a stock of red water. The actual laboratory section of the structure was set up with an independent ventilation system, allowing Frank, Melvin, and Ken to bring in and arrange furniture, food, and even relocate my books without exposing themselves to the toxic red water fumes.

By the time I'd gotten the Philosopher's Flowers processing the red water, there was nothing more to be done setting up the living space, so I was free to work on my reports.

I decided that a chronological order made the most sense to me, so I started with a paper on chimera production and maintenance. I supplemented my initial research with notes on Loki's performance in a variety of real-world battle conditions. Next was a paper on the use of destruction alchemy in manufacturing applications, noting both its success in the Ishbal reconstruction, as well as its superior speed and energy efficiency compared with conventional alchemy-aided manufacture.

I prepared a second set of reports after those, expecting that the military would wish to classify some of these later reports. I started with detailing what I'd learned on the subject of soul attachment, going over the blood seal process employed by Dante in Xerxes and the different method pioneered by Majahal and perfected by Karin. I included a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of each method, with a focus on how to fight such constructs.

Finally, I prepared a paper on alchemic disruption, the process of interfering with the transmutation of an enemy alchemist. I started with the basic techniques I'd used fighting Psiren and moved on through the more advanced techniques I perfected during my classified fights with Sloth, and included an aside about how I'd protected Frank, Melvin, and Ken from the creation of the Philosopher Stone in Liore.

I was able to harvest four batches of Red Stones using the Tringam Method while I prepared my reports. Hopefully they would be enough for my experiment.

I handed over the papers to the Swarm Alchemist along with a leave request form. Officially I was taking a month off to recover psychologically from the incident at Lab 5 and the general accumulation of battle stress over the past year.

Unofficially, I returned to my newly constructed lab and wrote up some new reports. Knowing how dangerous what I would be attempting was, this was more a last will and testament. I detailed my experimental protocol in the hope that if I didn't survive, someone else might benefit from knowing what I tried to do and how, and hopefully avoid whatever mistakes led to my death.

. . .

Author Comments:  
It always bugged me that Ed just ignored the fact that the Tringam brothers managed to make a stone that works. Able to violate equivalent exchange, boosting alchemic power, and doesn't require a transmutation circle. To quote Ed on the stones he encounters later "Who cares if it isn't perfect? It was made by human hands and it works!"


	11. Human Transmutation

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 11) Human Transmutation  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

I placed the notes on the table in the structure's main living area and climbed up the stairs toward the surface. Halfway up, I activated the circle I'd scribed on the wall. A new wall sealed off the way up, and above, the stairs leading down here and marking the lab's location turned to sand. It wouldn't stop a concerted search, but it would prevent casual interruption.

I walked Loki over to a kennel I'd set up with an auto-feeder. He would be okay down here until the search parties arrived if something happened to me. I almost took him back to the base, but reminded myself that even in his dog form, the chimera could still hibernate and survive just fine even if it took them years to find this lab.

With Loki bedded down, I grabbed my stock of red stones and headed to a part of the lab I'd built after the others had left. There were two floors connected by an adjoining spiral staircase. After confirming all my materials were in place, I cut this part of the lab off from the rest using alchemy.

I scribed one array on each floor, and used a red stone in the center of the lower floor's array to keep the energy circulating. I left the basket of red stones on the far side of that room before heading upstairs.

Between Dante's notes and Hohenheim's letters, I'd managed to put together a human transmutation array. The ingredients were piled in the center of the array. To the raw elements, I added a drop of my own blood to serve as the template. That done, I walked behind a pane of one-way glass so I could see the results, but I would be hidden from the results. Some of the array extended out past the one-way mirror. I took a deep breath, gathered my nerve, and activated the array.

Golden light poured from the circle, and the pile of ingredients began to move and react. I mentally braced myself, knowing that this was the calm before the storm. Then, the golden light became flecked through with blue and red, swirling around itself like a whirlwind. Arcs of alchemic lightning shot out from the transmutation in random directions.

That was when I saw it. I wasn't in the lab anymore. I'd been taken somewhere else. Surrounded by golden light, I was standing before the Gate. Of its own accord, the massive doors opened, and I saw a multitude of eyes in the blackness beyond. Tiny black hands reached out, lightly touching my body. I knew this was the part where they were going to take something from me. I hadn't been warned about what happened next.

Knowledge started forcing its way into my mind. Flashes of advanced alchemic concepts I'd never studied, physical laws that had never been articulated, lifetimes upon lifetimes of study and learning passed before my mind's eye. Everything was there. I could only retrain the smallest fragment as my mortal mind brushed against omniscience.

I was so enthralled by this process, I lost track of my physical body and what those tiny black hands were doing. A shot of raw animal pain returned just enough awareness to my body even as the knowledge of the universe continued to pour through me. Several of the hands had reached into my chest, and I watched in horror as they tore out my heart.

The hands withdrew, the knowledge stopped imposing itself on my mind, and the massive stone doors swung closed. Then I was back in the lab bleeding out.

The deadman switch I'd been holding in case something like this released, and the floor beneath me opened up, dumping my dying form on the array on the floor below that continued to glow red. Still on the other side of the one way glass, the pile of bones, tissues, and misplaced organs that had been the result of my transmutation attempt fell to its own place on the array I'd copied from Majahal's notes.

I felt myself slipping away in the red light of the array and cursed myself for a fool for thinking I could make this work. Then, the numbness disappeared all at once, and I flt searing agony with each beat of MY HEART!

The experience of having automail installed helped prepare me for this agony, to the extent anything can. I'm not sure how long I laid there lacking even the muscle control to scream, not even sure if the pile of flesh that my soul was now attached to even had its lungs connected. If I had eyelids, I couldn't make them close, so I stared into the mirror showing me the reflection of my twisted body. I'd been told that a homonculus doesn't have a human form when it's born. No one had mentioned that the form it does have is a broken, twisted pile of bones, organs, and exposed nerve endings in constant pain.

As I stared at the mirror, I thought of my corpse just on the other side. A homonculus could supposedly survive any injury, which was why this structure, incompatible with life as it was, hadn't died. If I got to the other side of the mirror, I'd die on sighting the body and the pain would end. I tried to remind myself that there was another option, that if I could eat the red stones, I would supposedly heal and assume a human form.

Either way, I had to move if I wanted the pain to end. My first attempts resulted in radically more agony and a shuddering visible in the mirror, but no locomotion. I forced myself to slow down and approach this methodically. I spent hours trying to move single muscles and observing the results. Eventually, I figured out enough to try to move.

With an act of will, I forced myself to turn away from the mirror, and move toward the red stones. Trailing blood, bile, and viscera behind me, I dragged my body to where I'd left the stones. After a half hour of dragging myself towards them, I was cursing myself for putting them so far away.

When I finally arrived, I spent even longer figuring out how to get one of the stones to my mouth. After a dozen attempts, I finally bit down on what was probably one of the most poisonous substances on earth. And the pain lessened. Not by much, but the relief was real.

I spent days, maybe weeks, feeding myself the red stones, gradually gaining more control over my body as I did, the pain lessening with each bite. My bones gradually migrated to their right places, organs connected properly, and when the basket of stones was empty, I was sitting upright holding it upside down trying to shake any remaining flakes into my open mouth.

The pain gone, I took inventory of my newly regenerated body. The first surprise was that I wasn't naked. I was wearing black pants and a black half-vest made of the same material I'd seen Sloth and Wrath wearing. The open vest showed off the oroboros mark that had appeared in the center of my chest, where the heart had been torn out of my original body.

I had both arms and legs, counted fingers and ties, and closed each eye. The transmutation had worked. I rose unsteadily to my feet, delighted that both of my bare feet could feel the cold stone floor. I stepped, hooped, stood on one foot, and gradually confirmed that everything was working, all while grinning like a maniac.

Feeling sure of myself, I walked around the mirror, and felt the strength leaving my limbs. I managed to keep from falling over, but I did stumble a few steps backward. Seeing my old corpse, having been left to putrefy for however long it had been, I became more aware of the beating of my heart, the stale air, an the uncomfortable texture of the floor on my bare feet.

If everything I'd been told was true, these remains were now the key to permanently killing me, and I dared not touch them, lest I be paralyzed. I didn't want to die. I gave the corpse a wide berth as I made my way to the stairs, taking careful note of every trickle of blood.

On the upper level, I confirmed two large blood stains on the trap door that had dropped me onto the soul attachment array. I approached the wall I had transmuted into place to seal off this test chamber, and was struck by an awful thought. Maybe the soul attachment hadn't worked. Maybe I'd died, but the homonculus had been imprinted with my memories. I calmed myself with the assurance that I'd know for sure soon.

I took a piece of chalk off the ground and drew a transmutation circle on the wall. With all the trepidation of my first use of alchemy years ago, I touched the array. To my great relief, blue light shone from the array as the energy circulated and a door back to the rest of the lab appeared.

I decided that whatever might be learned from my remains was outweighed by the threat they posed, so I returned to the wall, then deconstructed everything on the other side of the door to its component atoms. I then erased the circle I'd used and headed for the bathroom to get a good look in the mirror.

I felt weak when I stepped inside and quickly identified a few strands of hair in my comb. Ignoring it for the moment, I looked at myself in the mirror.

My skin was pale and a bit unhealthy looking. My hair had turned black, and my irises purple. The pupils were slitted like those of a cat, and my teeth were all sharpened to points. Disbelief at the change turned to shock as I watched my body undergo a metamorphosis in the mirror. As I recalled my old appearance, it was restored. Dark skin, brown hair and eyes, human pupils and teeth. Disbelief in the transformation saw me restored to the inhuman homonculus form. I practiced in front of the mirror for a few minutes, getting a handle on how to voluntarily change. The clothing, likewise, could be made to appear and vanish at will.

Resuming my human appearance, I went to check on Loki. The chimera was sleeping in his kennel, and judging by the feeder, I'd been away for about three weeks. I woke him, and his enthusiastic greeting stopped suddenly when he caught a familiar scent and sniffed at me suspiciously.

"It's me, boy," I reassured the animal, extending my hand in a gesture of trust. Between my voice, appearance, and mannerisms, Loki eventually concluded that I was me despite the smell, and licked my hand in greeting.

"I did it, boy," I told the chimera enthusiastically. "I learned enough alchemy to fix my leg. Let's see what else I can do."

I headed for the planters in the red water section of the lab and harvested the red stones that had been cultivated while I was incapacitated. After I'd cut the red stones out of each Philosopher's Flower, I made a small cut on the back of my arm. I watched with interest as the wound glowed blue and sealed itself, healing perfectly as though the cut had never been.

Setting down the stones, I approached one of the flowers that needed to be repaired with alchemy. I set down the knife with that array scribed on it, and clapped my hands together. Using the knowledge I retrained from the Gate, I circulated the energy within my body and touched the plant. The transmutation took hold and the flower was restored in a wash of blue alchemic light.

After using circle-less alchemy to heal all of the Philosopher's Flowers and setting up the planter to introduce more red water to them, I brought my crop of red stones back into the living area.

Over the next week, I experimented with my new body, testing its limits. I confirmed that my regeneration used up consumed red stones, and that it would stop if I ran out, only to resume once I ate more. I learned that eating enough red stones would increase my strength and speed, but that these advantages would be negated in view of what remained of my human body. I was relieved to learn that my regeneration wasn't impacted by the presence of my remains, meaning I would need to both be depleted of stones and in the presence of my remains to die, rather than just one or the other.

I even rigged up a way to test the idea that touching my remains would paralyze me by transmuting a block of ice and setting the hairs from my comb on top. I touched them and confirmed that I couldn't move. Eventually, the ice melted and I was freed from contact.

The day I was to return to duty, I was excited. I ate all but one of the red stones I'd produced, putting the last one inside my pocketwatch. Now it really was an alchemic amplifier. Putting on my uniform, I clapped my hands touched the soles of my shoes, updating the arrays with some of the things I'd seen in the Gate. Then, before I left, I deconstructed all the skin flakes, hairs, and other pieces of my old body I'd found and been experimenting with.

. . .

Author's Comments:  
And so, the Iron Sole Alchemist's quest to master human transmutation has reached its end. Now not only is he flesh and blood and bone again, but his newfound regenerative powers should keep him from losing his limbs again. Next time, we find out how his friends and colleagues react.


	12. Rejection

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 12) Rejection  
by Howlin

 

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

There was a spring in my step as I made my way back to base, with Loki trotting happily beside me. I waved to Frank, Melvin, and Ken when I saw them.

"Come on," I said happily. "There's something I want to show you."

The trio followed me to the barracks.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" asked Melvin.

"I see you enjoyed your vacation," noted Ken.

"Actually, it was torture," I said, "but productive. Look at what I've done." I pulled up my right pant leg, revealing my flesh and blood leg.

"What?" asked Frank, momentarily confused.

"That leg used to be automail," noted Ken.

"How is that possible?" asked Melvin.

Still smiling, I replied, "I performed a human transmutation, creating a homonculus body, then attached my soul to it."

"Human transmutation?" said Melvin in a frightened tone as he started backing away from me and toward the exit.

"That's right," I said tentatively, unsure about his reaction. "I just used it on myself. No one got hurt but me."

Stepping between me and Melvin protectively, Frank stared me down for a second, his face hard, then he looked away in disgust. "These things are taboo for a reason."

"Frank," I started.

"Save it," he snapped. "You crossed a line. We're through. Don't try to stop us from leaving."

"Stop you from leaving?" I asked, then realized what he was implying. "Go ahead. I'm going to see the Colonel next anyway. I'm not going to ask you to cover for me."

"Come on, Ken," said Frank as Melvin scurried out the door.

"We should hear him out," said Ken.

"You hear him out," spat Frank as he turned on his heel and left.

"Guys-" I pleaded.

"Why'd you do it?" asked Ken in a carefully neutral tone.

"Because I wanted to feel my leg again," I said. "Because automail's enough to get me functional, but it's still second best to flesh and blood. Because I was sick of fighting inhuman creatures at a disadvantage. Because I needed to know if I could. What do you want to hear?"

"This was your plan from the beginning," said Ken, comprehension dawning. "That's why you wanted to see Fullmetal's records. Now that you've accomplished it, what are you going to do now?"

"There are a lot of people this could benefit. It could make automail obsolete and revolutionize medicine. Other than that, I still have to stop Shao Tucker from hurting or killing anymore people in pursuit of the Philosopher Stone."

"What?" asked Ken, shocked.

"An assignment I've been working on for a while. The Sewing Life Alchemist was never executed. The details are classified, but suffice it to say, he's too dangerous to leave be. If I want to thwart his ambitions, I'm still going to need the military's support. Let's go get the meeting with the Colonel over with."

. . .

Ken followed a few steps behind as I entered the Swarm Alchemist's office. Melvin and Frank were already there, flanking the Colonel. Melvin tried to make himself look small, and Frank stared at me contemptuously.

"These men have made a serious accusation against you, Iron Sole Alchemist."

"Before we get into that, Colonel, I'm pleased to report that my attempts to reproduce the Tringam brothers' research was successful. I'm recommending they both be given the opportunity to take the State Alchemy Exam."

"So noted. Is there anything else?"

"Frank and Melvin were telling the truth. I did perform a human transmutation. I successfully produced an artificial homonculus body and attached my soul to it." With that, I again pulled up my pant leg, revealing flesh where there had once been metal.

"I'd like o get a closer look at that foot. Are the toes under control? Is the right foot a mirror of the left, or does it have its own footprint?"

"Sir?" asked Frank.

I'd never seen the Swarm Alchemist this curious and inquisitive. It was a bit unnerving.

"So, I take off my shoes and you've removed my ability to transmute quickly, is that the idea?"

"Not quite."

Thousands of beetles dropped from the ceiling directly on to my head. For the first second, I could feel them tearing at skin and clothing, but once my body was reduced to a skeleton a few seconds later, there was nothing left to register pain.

I let the red stones in my system do their work, and my organs, muscle, and finally skin were reconstructed in waves of blue alchemic light. Now in my homonculus form so I wouldn't be naked, the eyes of everyone in the room went wide except for the Colonel, who's eyes were hidden behind those glasses.

Loki growled at my attacker and the insect swarm washed toward the dog. Violet light surrounded the dog and the advancing swarm, and the entire first wave of beetles were broken down by Loki's transformation. I dove to where my pocketwatch had fallen when my uniform had been destroyed, snatching it up, rolling to one knee, and holding the watch in front of me. Using the red stone inside to amplify my transmutation, a cone of blue light shone from the watch and enveloped the remaining insects, deconstructing them and depriving the Swarm Alchemist of his weapon.

Frank tackled me, pinning my right arm under his knee, and Ken grabbed the watch out of my pinned hand, with a "sorry" as he did so.

Loki leapt to my aid, but unexpectedly transformed back into a dog mid-leap. I noticed a small spider dislodging itself from Loki's fur near one of the muscle groups I'd used to trigger his transformation. In this from, Loki may not have been able to take a tank round and keep coming, but a big, angry dog is still something you don't want flying at you.

Ken leapt to the side, while frank held up his arms to fend off my dog. Loki tackled the large man off me, and I sprang to my feet. Melvin fired a shot from his sidearm into my chest, to no real effect.

I sprinted at the Swarm Alchemist, clapped my hands, and pressed my palms against his chest. Blue light poured from my palms, and his uniform shirt transformed into a straight jacket, restraining him.

"We don't have to do this!" I yelled, causing the others to pause.

"You're just like the others," said the Swarm Alchemist, his volume even as more anger slipped into his tone. "Flame, Sewing Life, Fullmetal. You all think you're special. That the rules don't apply to you. Do you have any idea how dangerous we are? When guns and tanks aren't enough, the military calls in the State Alchemists. One rogue alchemist destroyed your home city."

"What's your point? What does what I did have to do with Liore?"

"We have to be answerable to people. We can't just do whatever we like on our own say so." That was when I saw the fleas.

Almost imperceptible specks danced across the transmuted straight jacket. They glowed green, and began breaking down the restraint to fuel their growth like Loki did when he transformed. The Swarm Alchemist's chest was visible through the mostly destroyed straight jacket. Hundreds of transmutation circles, inked in different colors were tattooed across the man's upper body. Each was a different size, and their arrangement was haphazard, with no unifying pattern I could see. Four of them were glowing.

A hundred fleas transmuted with the material of the straight jacket grew and distorted, turning into chimeras with elements of large wasps augmented with mantid pincers.

"It's gratifying to see you've been reading my research papers, Colonel."

"I've made some modifications for my own purposes." With that, a new circle on the Colonel's body activated, and the swarm attacked.

Stingers penetrated my body, injecting venom that felt like liquid fire. Clearly having seen that killing me wouldn't be easy with this new body, the Swarm Alchemist was trying to incapacitate me. It was pretty bad. But I'd felt much worse.

I leapt at Loki, clapping my hands in midair. Gunshots rang out, and bullets impacted my body, causing only a fraction of the pain of the stings. I planted my palms on the dog's back, activating his transformation manually. I landed on Loki's strong, armored back, gripping his golden mane.

The Swarm Alchemist had backed off his bugs when I went for Loki, not wanting them to end up like his beetles. Guiding Loki with one hand, we charged at Ken.

The soldier's eyes went wide as he cracked off panicked shots that either penetrated me harmlessly or deflected off Loki's armored scales. At the last minute, I pulled Loki to the side, snatching my pocketwatch by its chain as we charged past into the hall.

Bullets were forced out of my body by my regeneration as I rode Loki past dozens of surprised soldiers with just enough presence of mind to leap out of the way.

This base was a fortress, but all the preparations had been focused on keeping enemy troops out. Not much thought had been spared about how to keep people in. Loki rushed the machine-gun nests and razor wire barriers, breaking the weapons that would be pointed in the direction we planned to flee using his sharp fore-claws.

One final leap past the trenches, and we were free. A few halfhearted rifle shots followed us as we rode off into the desert.

. . .

Back at the lab, I transmuted a satchel and gathered up what I could. An armload of irreplaceable books and notes from Dante, Majahal, and others. No new red stones were ready, so I purified what had been produced instead, then stuffed a handful of seeds into the satchel.

I transmuted myself a new pair of boots out of the furniture, applied my arrays to the bottoms, then returned to the surface with Loki, who had returned to normal. I stomped my foot, and the entrance to my lab turned back into sand in a burst of blue light. I didn't want to destroy it with all those books inside, but even with the key books in my satchel, anyone looking to cause trouble for me could do worse than that library. As a compromise, I just buried it, dragging it deeper underground with alchemy.

"We're fugitives on the run now, Loki. I'm sorry I got you into this, boy."

The dog whinned slightly and rubbed his head against my leg.

Fondling the animal's ears, I said, "Thanks, boy. It's good to know at least you'll always be on my side. We'd better go."

. . .

We circled wide around Ishbal, and spotted the train tracks the military had laid ot transport supplies between Ishbal and East City. I transmuted sone of the sand to allow Loki and I to hide right next to the tracks. We waited until a west-bound train headed back to East City came along. Taking Loki in my arms, I started to run alongside the train.

With each step, blue arcs of alchemic light flared. The sand pushed up and forward, augmenting my speed. Almost matching the train's speed, I leapt upward, a column of sand launching me with it and augmenting my jump. I landed soundlessly on the train's roof, the arrays on my shoes both keeping the roof from distorting and making sound, and enhancing the grip allowing me to instantly come to a stop relative to the train.

I gently set Loki down and encouraged the animal to stay low. When we arrived in East City, we were able to slip into the crowd and surreptitiously board another train in one of the cargo cars.

. . .

Going to Rush Valley was a risk, since the military knew I had connections there, but I was hoping they'd assume I wouldn't have any need for a mechanic now that my leg was flesh and blood again.

I transmuted myself a new set of clothes from the straw in the boxcar Loki and I had ridden in, and disembarked. The huge crowds made me feel better about this decision, since even if the military was looking for me here, I'd be just one more face in the crowd.

I picked my way through the heaviest parts of the crowds as I made my way to Dominik's show. The out of the way alley felt much more intimidating, but I sucked it up and went inside.

Paninya had added more pictures and newspaper clippings to the walls extolling the virtues of Dominik's automail. Responding to the chime, Dominik stepped out of the back. He looked me over with that appraising stare of his, and I just accepted it sadly.

"You need repairs?" he asked after a few minutes' assessment.

"Sort of the opposite," I said, trying to find some humor in my new fugitive status. "Is Paninya around?"

"She'll be along sooner or later." After I sat quietly stroking Loki's head for a few minutes, Dominik noted, "Do what you want," then headed back into the work area.

I ran through what I was going to say over and over in my head. It didn't actually help me figure out what to say, but it did pass the time. At length, Paninya entered.

"Hey," she greeted me with a smile, "What brings you here. You don't look like you lost another fight."

"I didn't lose the last one!" I shot back, falling easily into the friendly teasing again. "Anyway, there's something I need to talk to you about," I said more seriously.

She sat down in the chair beside me and asked, "What is it?"

"I'm in trouble," I said, haltingly. "My commanding officer tried to kill me, and I went on the run."

"You deserted?"

"It wasn't my idea."

"What happened?"

"See for yourself," I replied, and pulled up my right pant leg.

"Your automail..."

"My body's 100% flesh and blood again. I cracked how to do it with alchemy. It was technically human transmutation, though, and now the military's after me."

"Why would you risk that when you already had automail to let you walk?"

"I didn't really expect the response to be so extreme. I thought the human alchemy taboo was just about trying to bring back the dead."

"Why come back here? You obviously don't need Dominik anymore," she said with just a hint of heat in that last sentence.

"I didn't really have anywhere else to go," I admitted. "My home town was destroyed over a year ago, and since that time, I've been building a new life with the military. I'm not sure what my next move is. I need a place to stay for a while to prepare and to get my bearings."

"Have you asked Dominik?"

"I wanted to talk to you first."

"Why me? It's Dominik's property, you know."

"I said I wanted to talk to you first, not that I only wanted to talk to you. I need some time to make preparations, a few days at least, but after that, I can fix your body the same way I fixed mine."

"There's nothing wrong with my body!" she exploded, her attempts to reign in her emotions finally failing. "And there was nothing wrong with yours either!" I could see tears starting to form in the corner of her eyes that she was holding back by force of will. "But no, being like the rest of us wasn't good enough for you!" With that, she turned and ran out the door, slamming it behind her.

I just stood there, stunned. It wasn't the reaction I'd expected.

Dominik emerged from the back. He'd obviously been listening.

"What did I do?" I asked.

"Besides committing the highest crime we have a law for, going on the run from the military, and potentially leading them to my doorstep," said Dominik not unkindly. "Take a look at that wall." He indicated Paninya's wall of awards and newspaper clippings. "Do you know why she does that?"

I started to speak, then shook my head. It was obvious I didn't know Paninya as well as I thought.

"She's got some fool idea in her head that she has something to prove about her arm and legs. I'm sure some of it is a misguided attempt at defending my honor."

"I think I get it. When I offered to restore her organic limbs, she took it as me saying I didn't think she was good enough as she was. That wasn't my intention.

"I do want to tell you that your automail did save my life more than once, and I'm grateful for all you've done."

"You can't stay here," he said, changing the subject. "The military's hunting you, and I won't have you drawing them here and endangering Paninya."

I was disappointed, but nodded. "Tell her I didn't mean what I did or what I offered to do as an insult to either of you when she gets back, will you?"

"Sure."

. . .

Loki and I wandered the streets of Rush Valley as I tried to work out what to do next. I spotted Paninya just around a corner, and called out to her, hoping to get a chance to apologize.

She turned, and I saw her eyes widen in surprise as she recognized who had called to her. Her features twisted into a vengeful grin a moment later as she pointed down the alley at me and yelled, "That's him!"

"What?" was all I could get out before a dozen men in blue military uniforms rounded the corner. They'd obviously been talking to her just out of view.

"Hold it right there!" called out one soldier as the rest dropped to one knee, aiming pistols down the alley.

"Let's not get into a firefight in the middle of a crowded city," I suggested.

"Turn yourself in, and it won't need to come to that."

I looked behind me and saw people the next street over going about their business. If the soldiers opened fire, they might get hurt.

I launched myself forward at the soldiers. When my first step came down, I used the array on my shoe to transmute a mass of sandbags behind me, closing off the alley, with Loki on the far side.

Shots rang out, all of them misses, impacting my freshly transmuted barrier even as the final blue arcs of the transmutation discharged.

Paninya's eyes went wide when the soldiers fired. I'm not sure what she expected to happen, but as I surged forward, she fled the scene.

I zigzagged as I charged the soldiers, reducing the accuracy of their shots still further. I may be able to regenerate, but each time I used that ability, it depleted the red stones in my system. After the fight with the Swarm Alchemist, I wasn't sure how much I had left, and without a safe lab, I had no way to replenish them.

When I reached the soldiers, I clapped my hands and grabbed one of their guns by the barrel, transmuting it into a useless lump of scrap metal. I followed it up by bringing my left foot down and causing a strip of stone to rise at the feet of another of the soldiers, wrapping around him and immobilizing him.

Gunfire continued to ring out, and one of the bullets grazed my right shoulder. I clapped and touched the wall of one of the nearby buildings and transmuted a wall into place, sealing off the other end of the alley. Hopefully that would keep bystanders on the other street safe while this fight escalated.

I stomped and formed a short barrier for cover, then crouched down with my hands clapped together. One soldier rounded the barrier close by while a second circled wide from the other direction. I slapped my palms against the ground, and both men were swallowed up by the earth, with just their heads visible.

Another soldier jumped my barrier unexpectedly during my transmutation. I shot my right foot out from under my crouching form and kicked the barrier. The array on my shoe transmuted the short wall into an upraised fist that impacted him in the midsection, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to drop his gun.

I was back upright in an instant, scooping up his dropped gun as I went. I fired off a few shots high, no chance of them hitting anyone, but it was enough to get the soldiers' heads down and give me some breathing room.

I ran at a group of three together, clapping my open left hand against the right fist that still held the gun. I slapped my left hand onto one of the men and made a sweeping arc with my arm. On contact with my hand, the fabric of his uniform glowed blue and clung slightly to my hand. The gesture shook the material lose from my hand, and caused it to finish unraveling from its original form, and wrap the three men together in a seamless fabric tube holding their arms at their sides.

The four remaining men circled me and stood at a wide distance, their guns turned on me. As I turned to keep them in my view, I used the arrays on my shoes to produce a pyramidal bunker around me with small viewing slits on each side. The gunfire that came in response to my alchemy was harmlessly deflected upward by the bunker's walls.

I continued to turn in a circle to keep all four men in view. I caught sight of one of them taking careful aim, so I stomped my left foot and split the earth in a jagged line from me to a short distance past him. He fell and got caught helplessly in the narrow fissure. That act cracked open my bunker along that face, and two soldiers rushed to circle toward the opening.

I burst out of the crack just as these men arrived, grabbing each by the gun arm and transmuting the metal in their sidearms into a chained set of manacles binding them together.

I drew the pistol I'd acquired in the fight from my waistband and hopped to the top of the cracked pyramid, taking aim at the last soldier.

"You're alone. Put the gun down," I said.

He scanned his bound and bruised colleagues for a moment, then carefully set his weapon on the ground.

"Good choice," I noted. "Someone's going to need to dig them up and cut them loose."

I scooped up that gun in my other hand as I walked by, kicked the pile of sandbags to transmute them away, and walked on. Loki was still there waiting for me, and fell into step as I rounded the corner. As an afterthought, I let the red stones in me regenerate that graze to my arm.

. . .

I wasted no time getting out of town. The soldiers who had seen me would be occupied for a while, but I didn't want to take any chances. I pawned one of the stolen guns for train fare and booked tickets for my next destination.

There was one person who knew my intentions from the beginning. Someone who had already helped me take steps toward accomplishing it, and who knew a thing or two about evading a manhunt.

I was shocked at how empty the streets of Aquroya were as I stepped off the train. People were discussing the news in hushed tones and falling silent when anyone approached them. I picked up a few snippets as I sought out the next building in town scheduled for demolition.

"She's crossed a line," said one man.

"There's no way she's responsible for this," said another.

"I hear the inspector's called for assistance from the military," noted one woman.

. . .

I walked in the door to the orphanage and approached a dark haired woman looking after some children playing with a model train set.

"Hello again," I said.

"Behave," she told the kids before walking up to me.

"I did it," I said producing the folio of letters from my satchel she had helped me find a long time ago.

She looked at my right leg and pursed her lips. "We shouldn't talk about this here," she glanced back at the children who'd paused their game to eavesdrop. "Why don't we talk more tomorrow evening?"

I left, then grabbed a discarded newspaper to confirm my suspicions. Psiren's next heist was indeed scheduled for tomorrow night. As I read on, however, more questions were raised. The police were enforcing a curfew that night, and justifying it on the grounds that Psiren was a dangerous criminal.

The woman was half thief, half street performer. She'd left the police, and a certain young alchemist, humiliated more than once, but no one got hurt. Then, I saw the part that changed everything. In addition to all the thefts, the paper noted that Psiren was now wanted for murder.

. . .

I made a gamble and approached the inspector in charge of catching Psiren. We'd worked together before.

"You asked for military assistance," I said, holding up my silver pocketwatch.

"And you are?" There wasn't even a hint of recognition in the inspector's face as he went to shake my hand.

"I can see why you might not recognize me. I'll give you a hint. I headed for Rush Valley as soon as yo let me leave town." I smiled and patted my right leg.

"Right! The one legged alchemist who helped us nab Psiren last time. So, you went and became a State Alchemist?"

"Command thought my experience with her made me an obvious choice to send. Can you tell me what happened, in your own words, from the beginning?" I surprised myself at how thoroughly I'd adopted the role of an authority over my time with the military. Even if it was based on an illusion, the role reversal relative to the last time the inspector and I worked together was satisfying.

"Of course," he said, almost startled. "After you left, Psiren managed to break out of the police van we were using to transport her to prison. She got back on track with her crime spree as if nothing happened. Then, a few days ago, she crossed a line."

"Go on," I prompted.

"We found the victim dead in his home. His heart was just missing, along with a near perfect cylinder of flesh and bone. No normal weapon could do that. It was alchemy. I realized right away who had done it, but the motive still has me stumped. But now that we have a genuine State Alchemist on the case again, we can ask her about that once she's behind bars."

"This doesn't sound like her MO," I noted. "Was there any announcement that she was going after the guy beforehand?"

"Nah, I figure she didn't want her involvement in this dirty business making the papers, and having her adoring public think less of her. She wasn't counting on me putting the pieces together."

"So, what's the plan for her next target?" I asked, still skeptical of his analysis.

"We're going all-in on this one. Failing to bring a thief in is one thing, but letting a murderer run lose is something else entirely. I'm authorizing use of deadly force. If we can't bring her in alive, she doesn't get to just run away until next time."

. . .

I convinced the inspector to keep his men guarding the escape routes and to let me handle the security for the museum itself. Psiren's target was a ruby encrusted crown displayed in a wing with only one entrance. There were other artifacts in that area, including a pair of sarcophagi. The building was one story, limiting her options.

Loki and I waited next to the artifact on the appointed night. Psiren strolled in the front door, having taken full advantage of my redirecting the police.

"Thanks for keeping this between the two of us," she said.

"It would be hard to talk privately otherwise," I noted.

She nodded, then asked, "Why did you kill Doctor Derocha?"

"Wait, Doctor Derocha's the man the police thought you killed? I wasn't even in town when that happened."

"The police are blaming me because alchemy was the murder weapon. But we both know you had a connection to him. Were you trying to cover up the fact that he amputated your leg in the first place?"

"I'm telling you, I didn't do this. I was trying to get away from a group of soldiers in Rush Valley when he died. There are bound to be military records that can confirm that."

"If you didn't kill him, who did?" she demanded, drawing her deck of playing cards out of her sleeve.

"Sloth," I said. "A homonculus I've been tracking. Her powers would leave wounds like that. I'm not sure why she'd kill the doctor, but-"

"Homonculi?" sneered Psiren. "If you're not even going to try to pretend you're making a plausible excuse, let's get this started already. I won't go down without a fight."

With that, Psiren's cards shot out at me, trailing pink alchemic light. Their diamond sharp edges cut into my flesh in a dozen places. She was playing for keeps.

Loki growled threateningly, and took on his chimera form in a burst of purple light.

Psiren pressed her attack on me while Loki charged, transmuting herself a sword out of her cards and rushing me.

Ignoring the sharp cards still embedded in my torso, I stomped my right foot, and a mass of glowing blue material flew up from the ground and into my waiting hand, where it finished transmuting into a metal staff.

I blocked Psiren's initial chop, and Loki came at her from the side, only to be swept away mid-leap by a horizontal column of water that shot in through the door.

While Psiren was distracted using her alchemy, I dropped and rolled backward, her card sword still embedded halfway through my staff. Her arm was pulled down as my boots went up. Kicking her in the chest, I used my own alchemy to tattoo an X across the array on her chest.

The water jet immediately stopped, and my chimera returned to the fray. Psiren's eyes went wide, and she finished cutting my staff in half before jumping backward, still gripping her transmuted sword as her only remaining weapon.

Loki leapt at Psiren, who's sword shattered back into playing cards on impacting the chimera's armored body. I whistled sharply, and Loki halted his attack at my command.

I pulled the diamond edged playing cards out of my body one by one as I walked toward Psiren. She flinched as I got within arm's length.

I walked a few steps past Psiren, then called over my shoulder. "Come on, Loki. We won't be getting any help from her. Time for us to go."

My chimera resumed the form of a brown dog and trotted after me as I left Psiren behind.

. . .

Visiting old friends was getting depressing. Even when I chose someone like Psiren who'd been sympathetic to my human transmutation ambitions, the fact that I'd done it made it easy to assume I was willing to cross nay line they might suspect me of crossing.

When I slipped out of town, I boarded a train to someplace I'd never been. A place the military would have no reason to look, and where I'd have no old friends to disappoint me with their reactions. And I might just find a fellow taboo breaker to talk to. I headed for Risembool, following the trail of that most prominent alchemist in my folio of letters on human transmutation, Hohenheim of Light.

. . .

Author Comments:  
Human alchemy is the biggest taboo this society has. There's a reason Ed and Al kept their attempts hidden, and they were lucky the people who eventually found out were as understanding as they were.


	13. Hohenheim's Legacy

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 13) Hohenheim's Legacy  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

It took a while for Loki and I to get our bearings. This part of the country was farmland and sparsely populated. When we finally reached the address on the letters, all we found was the burned out ruin of a house that had last stood years ago.

After sitting on some rubble for a few hours, I decided to look for a neighbor and ask if there was a forwarding address. The nearest house bore a sign announcing itself as Rockbell's Automail. I was trying to remember where I'd heard that name before, when Loki took off toward the house.

It didn't take me long to figure out what caught his attention, as a black dog with an automail foreleg ran towards us. The two animals circled and sniffed each other while I caught up.

"Den!" came a familiar voice from an upstairs window. "Stop harassing the customers!" It was Winry, the girl who'd taken my initial measurements when I was fitted for automail.

I called Loki and started to walk away.

"Wait!" she called out before running downstairs.

She caught up with my brisk walk, and I stopped, realizing that she wasn't going to let me get away.

"Sorry about Den," she said. "He's really just curious and friendly."

"That's alright," I said, gazing off at an angle away from her. "He didn't do anything wrong, and Loki was just as curious."

"Wait a minute, I know you," she said. I tensed before she continued. "We set you up with a new leg in Rush Valley, right?"

I sighed in resignation and said, "That's right."

"I'm surprised you tracked me all the way out here. Having trouble with..." She trailed off as she crouched down. Her eyes went from one of my legs to the other. I was wearing long pants and shoes, so she shouldn't have been able to see that my legs were both flesh, but after a moment's examination, she screamed and fell backward.

I blinked in confusion and said, "Winry?"

"Homonculus!" she screamed and started throwing random tools out of her pockets at me.

After taking a wrench to the face, I yelled, "Cut it out," then stomped my left foot. Earthen hands rose out of the ground to restrain the blonde-haired mechanic, accompanied by blue arcs of alchemic light.

She struggled a moment longer, then blinked and said, "Alchemy?"

"You knew I was an alchemist from when we met before!" I said irritably.

"So you can't be Envy," she signed in relief.

"If I let you go, do you promise to stop throwing stuff at me?"

"Yeah, sorry. I thought you were someone else."

I stomped again, and Winry was released, the hands withdrawing back beneath the ground.

"So, how'd you know I was a homonculus?" I asked. "I assume you noticed the leg was fixed, but not many people would make that leap."

"Wait, you really are a homonculus?" she asked, and started to look twitchy.

"Now don't start throwing things again," I said. "If I was here to hurt you, I'd have done it already. Now why don't you tell me about this Envy you mistook me for."

"No. How about you tell me why you're here."

"I'm looking for a man named Hohenheim."

"Ed and Al's dad? I'm sorry, but it's been over a year since he was around, and most of the decade before that too. Why are you looking for him? Does this have to do with the Philosopher's Stone?"

"What do you know about the Stone's creation process?" I prodded gently.

"I know you homonculi can't make it yourselves, so you seek out alchemists to make it for you."

"That was Dante's group. I'm not affiliated with them. What I was referring to is the fact that the Stone's manufacture requires the deaths of thousands of people. A former State Alchemist named Shao Tucker is seeking the Stone, and I'm trying to find help stopping him."

"It sounds like we both have stories to tell. Why don't you come inside and we'll compare notes."

Winry led the way inside, and I caught sight of Rose by the stairs.

"Is everything okay, Winry?" she asked.

"It's fine," she replied cheerfully. "We just had a little mix-up. I think the three of us should talk, though."

"Rose," I asked, "do you recognize me? It's Marcus. From Liore."

"You're okay," she responded. "You disappeared right around the time Father Cornello returned to try and re-establish control. You were so adamant that you'd never be fooled again, some of us were afraid you'd been killed."

"I was off studying alchemy in Central. I actually came back just before Scar's array was activated, but I can understand if you were a bit distracted to have noticed me."

. . .

The three of us sat down and had tea while we shared our stories. As the guest here, and the only one who wasn't human, I went first, hoping to ally any lingering fears. I told them everything. No half-truths or left-out details. If they were going to reject me over some of this, I wanted it to happen sooner rather than later, before I had a chance to get attached.

Both young women listened politely, occasionally offering an opinion, but never significantly interrupting. Both were sympathetic when I described losing my foot to the chimera. Winry nodded sagely when I relayed Psiren's initial warning that human alchemy was a taboo and a crime.

Rose deliberately held her tongue when I went over my choice to take the State Alchemy exam, and again when I mentioned the presence of Fuhrer Hakuro.

Winry showed shock, but not disbelief when I talked about my encounters with souls bound to various objects. When I detailed my experiences in Laboratory Five, and the array Shao claimed was designed by Edward Elric, she had the look of dawning revelation and muttered something unintelligible to herself.

Both sat enraptured as I struggled to describe the transcendent nature of my experiences within the Gate, and both expressed sympathy for both the physical pain and for the string of rejections that came after.

"You've taken this a lot better than I was expecting, Winry," I noted when it was over.

"I've got some experience with the aftermath of human transmutation," she began. "I grew up with Edward and Alphonse Elric. They tried to bring back their mother, and their bodies had pieces taken. Al lost his whole body. Ed lost his left leg, then sacrificed his right arm to bind his brother's soul to a suit of armor. After that, they went on a journey to find a way to fix their bodies.

"Your method probably would have saved them both a lot of pain and loss along the way if they'd learned it. Instead, Dante and her homonculi pushed them to pursue the Philosopher's Stone.

"Dante recruited the homonculus the boys created that night, and she became their Sloth. Ed ended up having to kill her himself."

Winry paused at that point, staring into space for a moment before continuing. "I can't imagine how hard that must have been. Dante had her hooks in deep. She had all the homonculi convinced that if they could bring her the Philosopher's Stone, she would make them human."

"Why did they want to be human?" I asked. "Aside from the ability to do alchemy, homonculi are a straight upgrade on the human form."

"I don't know about all of them, but according to Wrath, the one Ed and Al made in Trisha's image was tormented by flashes of memory and emotion from Trisha's life. Intrusive thoughts of being a loving mother to boys who were otherwise strangers to her. She wanted to become her own person, but the intent behind her initial creation kept trying to lock her into that role."

"So it wasn't humanity she was after. It was freedom," I concluded.

"Envy was a homonculus with the power to shapeshift. He could turn into anyone. When you came in, I thought you might be him. He disappeared through the Gate during the boys' confrontation with the homonculi's master. I hoped that meant he was dead, but..."

"As for me," cut in Rose, "Dante approached me using the name Lyra, alongside the Ishbalan Scar."

"Why did you agree to their plan?" I asked. "Thousands of people, torn apart in an instant with alchemy. Liore, our home, reduced to dust, along with any of our people still trapped inside. I didn't stop it when I had the chance, and that eats at me. How do you live with okaying the plan in the first place?"

"Now hold on-" began Winry before Rose cut her off.

"No," said Rose softly. "He deserves an explanation."

I waited and listened, keeping my expression neutral. I desperately hoped she would say something that would make my inaction okay. I doubted there was anything, but I had to know for sure.

"Fighting broke out between Cornello's followers and those that denounced him. I tried to keep everyone else safe, and talk these two factions out of fighting, but nothing I did was enough. The military came in response to the fighting. Claimed they'd come to restore the peace, but they didn't even try to understand what was wrong in the first place. They just started hunting and killing 'insurgents'.

"Their commander, Hakuro, was the worst of a bad lot. He led a team looking for 'insurgents' where I was sheltering a group of children. I didn't show enough 'gratitude' for their presence and-" She locked up. I recognized the look in her eye. She was reliving something awful. I'd worn that look myself more than once. I stopped Winry when she reached out for Rose, and we waited for a few minutes, letting her deal with whatever she was seeing.

A baby cried in another room, and Rose snapped out of it.

"I guess that means he's up now," said Winry gently.

"Yes," replied Rose, breathlessly. She got up and brought a young boy into the room, setting him on her lap. He looked like Rose and based on his age...

"I get it," I told her as she settled in. "What happened after Scar used the array?"

"Dante brought me to an empty city buried beneath Central. The homonculi brought Alphonse who's metal body had been turned into the Philosopher's Stone. Soon, Edward followed looking for his brother.

"Ed and Dante fought, then she used this transmutation circle to send Ed through the Gate." Rose pulled up her son's shirt, revealing a transmutation circle tattooed on his stomach.

"It doesn't work now," she said. "Dante claimed you need a very young baby to open the Gate that way.

"Is he alright?" I asked. "Did being used that way hurt him?"

"He's fine," she assured me, and bounced the boy on her knee.

"After Ed was gone, Dante made Gluttony, one of her homonculi, start eating Alphonse. He didn't want to at first, then she grabbed his tongue and claimed she'd eliminated everything but his hunger."

"That was where his oroboros mark was." I opened my shirt, revealing my own for reference.

Rose nodded, then continued. "Wrath demanded to be allowed to use the Stone to resurrect Sloth, who Edward had killed previously, and Dante summoned the Gate again to take his human limbs and his ability to use alchemy.

"The Gate stayed open a moment longer and Edward forced his way out of it. He fought Envy, and was killed by the homonculus.

"Alphonse broke free, drove off Dante and Gluttony with Alchemy, then used up his Philosopher Stone body repairing Edward's body and bringing back his soul. Envy tried to stop him and vanished through the Gate.

"Ed asked me to bring Wrath to the surface while he destroyed Dante's laboratory. He obviously did something else, since we later found Alphonse, and Edward had vanished."

"Why did she make her homonculus eat the Stone?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe to get rid of Al's attached soul. All I know is her endgame was to use the Stone to steal my body."

. . .

I accepted the Rockbell's offer to stay for a while and figure out what I was going to do next.

Loki and Den got to know each other, and I paid my keep doing repairs and other odd jobs using alchemy. I considered setting up a lab to process some more red stones, but rejected the idea as too dangerous. If something went wrong containing the red water, there were too many people that might be impacted by the chemical spill, especially considering this was farmland, and probably feeding several surrounding towns.

On my third day there, Wrath appeared at the front door. The others were out shopping, and I'd been left to mind the storefront, so I was alone with the two dogs when he showed up.

"Wrath," I greeted him. "I'm surprised you managed to track me here. Have you been okay since Dublith?"

"Track you?" he said after a moment processing my presence. "What are you even doing here?"

"I'm on the run from the military. I figured no one would think to look for me here. Guess I was wrong."

"Why are you on the run?"

"You hadn't heard? I figured that was why you came looking for me." I opened my shirt, revealing the oroboros mark in the center of my chest. "I turned myself into a homonculus."

Wrath paused at that. Whatever he'd been expecting, this wasn't it. I closed my shirt back up, and Wrath shook his head to bring his thoughts back into focus.

"I didn't come here looking for you at all. I was just looking for help."

"And these people have helped you before," I noted. "What's wrong? Maybe I can help."

He considered a moment, then said, "I found out where a real Philosopher's Stone is. I went through all Dante's old labs, and eventually I found a journal. Apparently, she knew about a Stone she couldn't get to for some reason. I'd just read where when your Sloth showed up. She took the book. I tried to fight her-"

"But you couldn't touch her," I finished. "Every blow passed right through her harmlessly."

"Yeah," he said. "She said she needed to bring the book back to her master, so there might still be time to beat them to the Stone if we hurry."

The idea of someone as amoral as Shao with the Stone's power was frightening on its own merits, whether he made it or found it. I quickly scrawled a thank you note to the Rockbells, called Loki, and told Wrath to lead the way.

. . .

Wrath led the way north from Risembool, towards the mountains.

"Risembool's the closest town to this lab. There aren't any roads or trains past this point."

I nodded as I continued to follow the intense young man. Wrath was moving with a purpose.

"Can you still use alchemy," asked Wrath, "or will we have to find another alchemist to help us use the Stone when we get it?"

"I created this body and attached my soul to it. My alchemy's stronger than ever," I assured him.

After a bit more walking in silence, Wrath asked, "So, which name did you take?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, confused.

"I told you there are seven of us. Me and Gluttony are still around, and that girl's calling herself Sloth, so which one are you?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," I admitted.

"Well, it is tradition," smirked Wrath. "We still have an opening for an Envy, Pride, Lust, and Greed."

Smiling back, I asked, "Which one do you think suits me best?"

"Why did you make yourself a homonculus to begin with?" he asked.

"I wanted my right leg back. That's what put me on this path to begin with anyway. Once I learned that immortality and regeneration were also on the table, the only reason not to do so would have been fear that I couldn't pull it off."

"Greed, then," said Wrath.

"Greed," I tried out the name. "It's kind of funny, how all my major life changes come along with a new name." I fondled my pocketwatch as I pondered that thought.

. . .

We hiked for two days straight into the mountains. Neither Wrath nor I really needed food or sleep, but Loki did. The first time he got tired, I transmuted a handcart for the dog to sleep in, and periodically stopped to transmute some random plant matter into something palatable for Loki.

At length, we came to the foot of a mountain. I rigged a sling to let me carry Loki while we climbed, then Wrath and I started our ascent.

I transmuted us some rope to tie ourselves together, then side-by-side we found handholds and pulled ourselves up. I couldn't clap and climb at the same time, but the arrays on my shoes ensured that my footholds would be solid the whole way up.

We made good time up the mountain, even with me calling for stops at any ledge when it got close to dark. We may not need to sleep, but it would be a lot harder to find handholds in the dark, and we'd be much more likely to slip. Wrath grumbled a bit, but accepted my reasoning.

"I still don't know how to use the Stone to bring back the dead," I admitted when we set up camp for the evening. "Making homonculi creates new life, but that isn't quite the same thing."

"I've seen it done. I can show you the transmutation circle Alphonse Elric used with the Stone to bring his brother Edward back to life."

Wrath sketched a very complicated human transmutation array, one almost nothing like what I'd used to create my homonculus body. I added it to my notes and committed it to memory, then said, "I'll need to spend some time going over this circle before we can try to bring your Sloth back. I want to make sure we do it right."

. . .

At first light, Wrath got us moving up the mountain again. I'd caught sight of a wide ledge above us, when Loki yipped a warning bark in my ear and started squirming in his sling.

I looked down, following the dog's gaze, and saw a pair of climbers below us. Shao was near the bottom, but his peculiar chimera body was well suited to climbing, and he was moving more than twice as fast as Wrath and I had. Sloth was ahead of him, ignoring the entire idea of handholds, and just sticking her hands and feet through solid rock, scrambling up almost as fast as if she was running on flat ground.

I called out a warning to Wrath, and we did what we could to pick up our pace. With our head start, we managed to reach the large ledge first, but only barely. Carved into the side of the mountain was a structure resembling one of the Temples of Leto from Liore. Stained glass windows overlooked large double doors, and sat below carved steeples.

There were about a hundred feet between the cliff edge and the structure, all of it flat and clear of vegetation. I clapped my hands and used alchemy to undo the ropes and slings binding the three of us together, then we made a run for the building.

As soon as Sloth cleared the cliff, I stumbled from a sudden weakness, and fell to one knee. Wrath and Loki stopped and turned to see what had happened. Turning my head, I saw Sloth clutching part of a human femur in her right hand.

"Wrath," I said, getting back to my feet. "Go for the Stone. I can't keep up with you while she's got those remains. I'll hold her off instead."

Wrath nodded and took off running. I turned to face Sloth, who was charging at me. My strength and stamina were back down to human normal while that bone was in play, but I'd fought her at that level before.

I whistled to Loki, and the dog leapt into my arms. Gripping his forepaws in my left hand, and his hind-paws in my right, I spun a circle, then hurled Loi at the charging Sloth. Loki twisted in midair into a pouncing position, and his fur glowed purple from the transmutation array tattooed underneath.

Sloth ignored the hurled chimera and charged forward, exactly as I was hoping. She realized my plan too late to dodge, but she was able to toss the bone off to the side and protect it from what came next.

I'd timed Loki's transformation perfectly. He flew through the air like a comet, trailing purple alchemic light, breaking down whatever matter he passed near to fuel the gain in mass that accompanied his transformation into his combat form. Sloth's head, upper torso, and both arms were among the matter broken down and used in Loki's transformation.

The green skinned, gold-maned chimera turned on a dime as he landed, fully aware that the fight wasn't over just because all that was left of our opponent was a pair of legs.

I sprinted towards the bone while Sloth regenerated. Loki tried to delay her recovery, but now that his structure and composition had stabilized, Sloth had no difficulty protecting herself with her powers.

I heard a strangled yelp from Loki as I reached the bone. I glanced back and saw that his snout had been cut off, along with a portion of his lower jaw. Loki was designed for combat, and his system quickly stopped the bleeding, saving his life.

I had to stay focused. I clapped my hands and grabbed hold of the dropped bone, alchemically deconstructing it and rendering it harmless. "You killed Doctor Derocha for nothing, Sloth," I said. "That piece of my old leg's gone now."

"We have more where that came from," she said with a shrug, then ran at me.

I threw my pockewatch at her and stomped my foot, using the arrays on my shoe to transmute two rows of inward facing spikes of various materials along her charging path.

Sloth ignored the distraction of the watch, allowing it to pass harmlessly through her body as she focused on dodging the spikes. Only it wasn't harmless. The watch stopped halfway embedded in her chest, and her entire body locked up, paralyzed.

"You weren't the only one who brought the other's remains to this fight," I said, grateful that the brick fragment I'd hidden in the watch worked. "Don't worry, boy. We'll fix you right up when this is all over," I said to Loki.

Then, blue light shone behind me. Wrath was on his knees vomiting. All the church windows were glowing blue. The alchemic reaction was building toward something, and I ran to aid Wrath.

Shao reached the ledge, and Loki charged at the Sewing Life Alchemist. Shao whistled, trying to take control of my chimera, but I'd removed that feature after our last confrontation. Loki's damaged face prevented him from ripping the throat out of the man who'd turned him against me before, but his body had plenty of other built in weapons. Loki came down from a leap, and severed Shao's left arm with his razor sharp fore-claws, then turned and cracked some bone or another with his tail, in what Shao's mutated body was using for a torso.

I reached Wrath, who was in the center of a glowing transmutation circle. Red stones were being vomited up, and he was clearly in pain. When I got close, another circle appeared under my feet and ignited with blue alchemic light. I started vomiting up my own red stones.

A burst of red light from the red stone in Shao's right hand saw Loki's body alchemically broken down, pieces of my faithful companion scattered across half the ledge.

The blue light pouring from the windows formed itself into the image of a tall, broad-shouldered man with a ponytail and beard. He wore glasses and a impled robe. It was a fascinating application of alchemic light that I would have certainly appreciated more if I wasn't on the ground writing in pain, processing Loki's death, and at the mercy of the Sewing Life Alchemist.

The projection spoke, with the images lips moving in synch with air molecules alchemically incited to form sound waves. If nothing else, I now understood the moniker Hohenheim of Light.

"Dante," came a world-weary voice. "Your homonculi can't enter. If you want my Philosopher's Stone, you'll have to do the one thing you've never dared. Come inside and face me yourself."

The projection vanished, but the arrays effecting Wrath and I remained. Shao walked past the helpless Sloth without a glance in her direction. He walked past Wrath and I without the defenses triggering, then disappeared through the door.

The array at my feet continued to glow, but my vomiting stopped, and I was able to regain my feet. Apparently I'd run out of red stones to vomit. Shao exited the structure carrying a large red crystal. As he crossed the threshold, the arrays went dark.

I went to rush him, but he gestured with the Philosopher's Stone and created a set of heavy leather bindings that gagged and immobilized Wrath and I. He hefted me over his shoulder and went to Sloth. Tugging contemptuously on the silver chain of my pocketwatch, he dislodged it from her chest.

"Bring Wrath," he whispered, and started down the mountain.

. . .

Author's Comments:  
As much as our hero has improved over the course of the story, the one thing he never counted on was going up against Hohenheim of Light. The man had to be doing something while abandoning his family, and I enjoy the irony of his protections being so focused on keeping Dante and her homonculi out, he ends up inadvertently helping the villains.


	14. Grief

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 14) Grief  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

I was carried to an abandoned factory in the south, which Shao had set up as a replacement for his abandoned lair in Lab Five. I was carried to a rectangular hole in the floor, leading to a doorless, windowless room covered in a large alchemy array. Shao dropped me in, then spoke.

"I must say, I'm intrigued by what you've managed to do to your body. I'd heard about it from sources in the military, but it's something else entirely to see it with my own eyes.

"The arrays covering the walls come from Laboratory Five. They held the homonculus Greed imprisoned for over a hundred years. I'm not planning on keeping you that long. I'll need you on hand while I go over your research notes, but after that, there'd be no point keeping you here." Shao held up the satchel of notebooks he'd taken off me after my defeat.

He pulled the lid onto this prison, and I could see that in addition to more alchemic markings, there was a kneecap embedded in the stone, prominently placed in the array. When the cover snapped into place, the wan light from the opening was replaced by a sickly red-violet glow from the array.

I was alone, afraid, and grief-stricken, so I did the only thing I had the presence for. I wept.

. . .

I don't know how long I laid there, but my imprisonment was interrupted by the sight of a familiar figure. Her brown hair braided into pigtails, Sloth's alter ego, Nina, stepped into the room with me. I reminded myself that although they shared a body, Nina and Sloth weren't the same person.

The girl approached me while I lay helpless on the floor, crouched down, then stared at my face for a full minute. Her features were twisted in concentration, then at length, recognition dawned and she said, "It is you!"

She grabbed my gag, and on contact with her fingers, the heavy leather strap became intangible to me, and passed right through my head.

"I need youw hewp," she said, tossing the gag asside.

"I'm not in much of a position to help anyone," I replied in a husky voice.

"Awe you cwying?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "I just lost my dog."

"I'm sowy. I wost my dog too, I think."

"Yeah," I confirmed. "Alexander died a long time ago. I'm sorry."

"Awexandew? Was that my dog's name?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "You're the one who told me."

"I don't wemembew." She put her hands on her temples. "I twy, but it's aw fuw of howes."

"Something's wrong with your memory?"

She nodded. "I have a wot of dwawings I don't wemembew making. In a wot of them, I'm pwaying with a white dog."

"Have you talked to your dad about this?"

She looked sad and nodded again. "When I tew him about this, he gets sad, then he does something and I fowget the pieces of memowies that towd me something was wong. I figuewed out that if I hide a dwawing aftew I make it, I aways wemembew making it, even if I fowget the thing I was dwawing in the fiwst pwace."

"He's erasing your memories," I realized. "But why would he..." Then comprehension dawned. "I think I can tell you what's happening, but first, I need you to confirm something for me. You only recognized me from a drawing, right?"

"That's wight."

"I thought so. Can you untie me the rest of the way?"

"Wiw you hewp me?"

"I promise."

Nina phased me out of my bonds, and I managed, with some effort, to pull myself into a sitting position.

"Your dad's the one causing your memory problems. You already know that. That's why you came to me."

Nina nodded an acknowledgement.

"The first thing you need to know is that the original Nina Tucker died years ago. You're a copy made by your father using alchemy."

Her eyes widened in shock, and it was heartbreaking shattering the girl's illusion of humanity, but I pressed on.

"Your father couldn't get your mind perfect. He used his own memories of his daughter as the basis for your memories and personality, but it isn't an exact science, and he made mistakes. Instead of owning up to those mistakes and accepting you as the person you are, he went back and tried to fix things.

"At some point, maybe even from the beginning, he gave up on making you exactly like the original Nina. The original Nina would miss and grieve for her dead dog Alexander, and instead of letting you get through that, he just made you forget Alexander ever existed.

"He wasn't even trying to make you into her anymore. He was trying to make you into an idealized doll to use to live out his fantasies at being a good father, living out a perfect life.

"But that wasn't the only thing he used you for." She was in tears now, but she kept her head up and kept listening, pausing occasionally to wipe her face with a sleeve.

"He realized that if he could change your memories and personality, he could make you into something else. He created an agent, someone who would go out and do things he couldn't or wouldn't do himself. He swapped your memories out with the memories of the agent he named Sloth.

"The reason you remember things you don't tell Shao about is that the can only manipulate memories he knows about."

"Can you hewp me wemembew?" she asked after she stopped sobbing long enough to catch her breath.

"Maybe," I said, "but if I do, you'd remember everything, even what Sloth did. And she's done a lot of bad things. She's hurt people, killed people. And to be honest, I'm not sure whether you'll really be you anymore once you remember being her."

"Pwease, I have to know."

I wasn't comfortable in the role of advocating ignorance to begin with, and her continued resolve in the face of the outlined risks put me over the edge. "Okay. Are you ready?"

She wiped her face again and nodded.

"Okay, come here," I said as I opened my arms wide.

Nina climbed onto my lap.

"You're sure?" I asked one last time.

"Yes."

I clapped my hands behind her back, then hugged the child tightly. My right hand pressed firmly against her right shoulder, and the oroboros tattoo on her back glowed blue through her shirt.

At once, Nina's body tensed up. I didn't know exactly what she was experiencing as I used alchemy to break down the barriers Shao had created to partition off her memories, but I hoped my presence would help her through dealing with it.

Nina's hair shifted color from her normal brown to Sloth's black, and she started sobbing uncontrollably. I glanced up at the bone hanging above while the girl cried into my chest. All she'd have to do is phase a little through my chest, stop my heart, and in the presence of those remains, with no red stones in me, I'd die and stay dead.

"It's okay, Nina," I said, continuing to hold her. "I'm still here."

Her oroboros went dark as my transmutation finished. She continued to sob for a while after, and I rocked gently, trying to be of comfort. At length, she recovered enough to speak.

"I hurt so many people." Nina's speech impediment was gone, but there was regret and remorse that I'd never seen Sloth to be capable of.

"You weren't the one in control," I reassured her. "You can't blame someone for what they did under mind control."

"But if I hadn't hurt your dog, he wouldn't be dead now. And all those people I killed. The people I made kill others." She broke back into sobbing.

"And if I hadn't brought Loki to that fight, he would have lived too. I don't know everything you did as Sloth, but Karin made her own choices. You didn't have a choice, but she did. Don't you have enough things to irrationally blame yourself for without taking responsibility for other people's choices?"

She settled down a bit, then phased through my arms and stepped back. She wiped her face with one last sniff and said, "We need to get you out of here."

"I'm all for that, but first, can you get that kneecap down?"

She nodded and scaled the wall using the same technique she'd used on the mountain. I took a cautious step back when she dislodged the bone and tossed it down. With the bone removed, the array went dark, and I quickly clapped my hands and deconstructed the bone.

"He's planning on doing to you and Wrath what he did to me, turning you into agents, only full time. Then he wouldn't need me anymore."

"Not need you?"

"Sloth, I mean," she said, frustrated at herself. "He plans on keeping me as his Nina doll full time now that he has other homonculus slaves."

"What do you say we rescue Wrath on the way out and bring his total down to zero?"

She extended a hand and I took it, and together we stepped through a wall into another part of the facility. Nina led the way to where Wrath was being held, in a cell similar to my own. Shao had no remains to weaken Wrath with, but he'd detached the boy's automail limbs and left him tied up.

"Greed?" asked Wrath, confused at my stepping through the wall with Nina.

"I'm still me for the moment," I confirmed.

Sloth undid his bonds as I helped him reattach his automail. The process provoked little more than a pained grunt, which I understood now that 'd been through the process of regaining human form after your homonculus body has been initially created.

"Why is she helping us?" asked Wrath suspiciously.

"She's helping us escape so we'll help her escape," I responded.

"You're sure?"

I nodded.

"Where's my stuff?" I asked Nina.

"He's got most of it with him," she replied. "He's trying to reproduce your transmutation after all."

"Are there any red stones around?" asked Wrath.

"Also with him."

"We can't win a fight in our condition," I said. "If any of my stuff isn't with him,we should grab it, then we should get out of here."

As it turned out, my shoes had been tossed in a corner and he'd placed Dante's notebook in his library for study. Everything else was with him.

Wrath, Nina, and I joined hands and she phased us through one wall after another until we were out of the building at which point we ran for it.

The three of us made for the train station. It was Wrath who asked the obvious question.

"Where are we going?"

"You and I lost all our red stones in that fight. We need to replenish our strength. If the military hasn't already found it, I have a lab near Ishbal.

. . .

Author's Comments:  
Sloth has now joined the good guys, but with Iron Sole's notebooks and Hohenhiem's Philosopher Stone, Shao is more dangerous than ever.  
For those of you intending to skip the next chapter, the important thing to know is that our newest member of the family decides she'd prefer to be called Sloth over being called Nina, since she doesn't want to pretend all the bad things she did as Sloth weren't her responsibility to atone for.


	15. Romantic Interlude 1

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 15) Romantic Interlude 1  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 16.  
***WARNING***

. . .

The three of us had no problem stowing away in one of the boxcars of a train headed our way. Once we were inside, we had time to think and talk.

"Why are you helping us?" asked Wrath.

"She was brainwashed when she was fighting us before," I told him.

"Sloth knew she was a disposable tool," she noted. "Nina was kept ignorant to keep her complacent. Is it so hard to believe I wanted to be my own person, and that once I had my memory, I wouldn't want to give that up?"

"We have a common enemy," I pointed out.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, before I ventured, "So, what do we call you now?"

"I was never really Nina, was I? And Nina got less and less real as time went on. And I can't just avoid or forget all the things Sloth did. She was bad, but she was real."

"Sloth it is, then," I acknowledged.

Wrath shifted an angry gaze between the two of us, and said, "I'll keep watch," and left the car to sit in the area between this car and the next.

Responding to Sloth's confused look, I explained, "He cared a lot about the previous Sloth, the one before you were transmuted. He's been looking for the Philosopher's Stone to try and bring her back."

"And he didn't like me using her name like I'm taking her place," she finished.

"He's also still disappointed about losing the Stone and it's another reminder that we failed."

"Do you know what happened to his limbs?"

"Not exactly. I know he replaced them with human limbs that let him use alchemy, then Dante used the Gate to take them away."

Sloth remained deep in thought, considering her next words, then asked, "Why are his arm and leg the wrong size?"

"Wrong size?"

"His automail leg is almost an inch shorter than his biological one."

"I hadn't noticed that before," I admitted.

"Did he get stuck with an incompetent mechanic after losing his limbs, adding insult to injury or...?"

"I knew his mechanic. She's the one who took my measurements. I wouldn't think she'd screw something like that up."

"So then... is he... growing?" There was both awe and jealousy in her voice as she gave voice to her suspicions.

"I've met the alchemist that made him. She claimed Wrath was transmuted from her stillborn baby."

"Why haven't I grown?" she demanded with a sudden flash of anger.

"From what I've learned," I said in a quiet voice, "homonculi don't age unless they were specifically designed to. Wrath's mother wanted the baby she lost to have a chance to grow up. Shao wanted..."

"A doll that would always be exactly like the daughter he lost."

"He didn't just lose her," I corrected. "He experimented on her, turning her into a poorly formed chimera who was in constant pain until she was put out of her misery. These aren't the actions of the kind of person who values people for who they are."

"So because of what he wanted to use me for, I'm never going to grow up. I'll never live a normal life."

"There are compensations," I pointed out. "You'll never grow old, and if you aren't killed, you'll never die. I deliberately made this body unaging to get precisely those benefits."

"You're already grown up, though. I'm going to be four years old forever. I'll never be a mom. I'll never even have sex."

"Wait, I think you're taking this a step or two too far," I said as her voice was starting to crack. "Being a mom isn't about giving birth. That's the least important part of the job, actually. So you won't go through puberty and can't get pregnant. Plenty of normal women can't get pregnant for whatever reason too. Obviously now would be a spectacularly bad time to adopt a child, but never is a long time.

"As for sex, why not? All the important parts are there well before puberty."

"Stop acting like this isn't a big deal! No one's going to be attracted to a little kid!"

"I'm not trying to ignore the problems you're pointing out. I'm just trying to add a little perspective. And why shouldn't anyone think you're attractive? You've got long, beautiful hair in two natural colors, depending on which form you take, big kind eyes in blue or purple."

She phased out of her pink shirt and blue dress, leaving her clothes in a pile as she stepped toward me. Her expression was unsure, and a little afraid.

"Do you mean it? Then let's have sex," she said as she forced herself to look me in the eye.

"Don't do this to yourself," I said. "Don't set yourself up to let one rejection define your self-worth."

"I knew you were lying," she said, disappointed and angry at the same time, and looked away.

I stepped forward, dropped to one knee, and put my right hand on her smooth, hairless pubic mound, my index and middle fingers slid between her legs, pressing against her labia.

She took a sharp intake of breath in surprise and looked back at me.

"I wasn't lying when I said you were attractive." I had her attention now, and hopefully she was ready to believe what I said next. Without removing my hand, I continued, "You've just been through a lot. You've run away from your abusive father, and you're still processing all those memories I unlocked.

"You are beautiful, and whether you believe it or not, it's taking some restraint not to jump at the offer. But if we do this, I don't want you to ever look back on it with regret." With that, I pulled my hand back. "So how about this? You spend the rest of the trip sorting out who you are and who you want to be, and when we get to my lab, and if you still feel the same way, we'll get some privacy and enjoy each other with no regrets."

In the blink of an eye, she was wearing her black dress. With a small smile, she said, "You promise?" recalling the first time we met.

"I promise," I replied and gave her a tight hug.

. . .

Author's Comments:  
Sloth thought she could win an argument by stripping naked and proving to our hero that she wasn't attractive. She lost by virtue of being way sexier than she gave herself credit for. If only all our failures were for such flattering reasons.


	16. The Return to Ishbal

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 16) The Return to Ishbal  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

There was no direct train to Ishbal, so when the train arrived in Central the following day, we had to switch. Worse, the only trains going in that direction were military supply trains for the base and reconstruction effort.

In preparation for the changeover, I transmuted myself a new blue military uniform.

"This might get me onboard if I'm lucky," I noted. "You're a little short, but if no one looks too close, you might be alright with the same sort of disguise," I told Wrath.

"Don't worry about me," said Sloth. "I can just approach from underground and climb in through the floorboards of a boxcar."

I nodded, clapped my hands, and transmuted a uniform onto Wrath. The alchemy bound his unruly hair into a single braid, and aside from his height, he looked every bit the professional soldier. I considered adding gloves to cover up his automail hand, but decided against it. That would be one more detail in favor of his status as a soldier.

Wrath tugged on his new clothes and squirmed uncomfortably.

"Don't fuss," I told him. "You have to look like you're used to this."

Sloth checked outside and signaled that the coast was clear. I opened the door, and we stepped out.

. . .

I tried to stay calm and act casual as I looked for an eastbound train. It was going well until the crowd parted and I was unexpectedly face to face with Riza Hawkeye. We both stared at one another in surprise for a few seconds.

After the surprise wore off, she reached behind her and said, "Major, we need to talk."

Wrath tensed, his teeth gritted. A hand on his shoulder and a casual tone from me prevented n immediate outburst of violence. "I wasn't aware I still held that rank, Lieutenant. Don't they rescind your rank when they order your execution?"

Not taking her hand from her back holstered pistol, but making no move to draw it, she replied, "Is it true?"

I glanced left and right, confirming that the crowd of military personnel were paying us no mind. Then, I shifted into my homonculus form, adopting pale skin, black hair, purple slitted eyes, and sharpened teeth, which I showed off with a smile.

Hawkeye visibly suppressed a reflex to draw her weapon, then asked, "What are you doing back in Central?"

"Just passing through. I was sort of trying to avoid notice, what with the manhunt and all. Sorry about this."

I'd caught sight of Sloth reaching up from the ground under Hawkeye. The homonculus grabbed her leg, and Hawkeye fell through the ground so fast, she didn't have time to yelp in alarm. An instant later, Sloth climbed out of the ground to join Wrath and I.

"Please tell me you just dumped her into a maintenance tunnel," I said, realizign that was only one possible explanation.

"Of course," she replied, falling into step beside Wrath and I, who'd started walking when Hawkeye disappeared. "I've got more than enough blood on my hands already."

"Just had to confirm," I said.

We picked up the pace, since it would only be a matter of time before Hawkeye found her way out of those tunnels and raised the alarm. We identified the right train, and Sloth phased us into the locked boxcar loaded with steel ingots. We breathed a sigh of relief together when the train started moving. The easy leg of your journey complete, now we just had to get through Ishbal and hope my lab was still hidden beneath the sands.

. . .

The train pulled to a stop two days later. Fortunately for Wrath and I, our homonculus bodies didn't need food or water, even with no red stones in our systems.

Sloth stuck her head through the train's floorboards to confirm the coast was clear, then I unlocked the door with alchemy and the three of us headed into Ishbal proper.

Things had come a long way since I'd first set eyes on this devastated region. Where once had been only outlines of ruins with a nearby tent city, now stood a collection of homes and businesses with a half-completed church forming the centerpiece of the town. Only a handful of tents were still set up in the old tent city, and the population of Ishbalans had nearly tripped since I'd last been here.

The streets were crowded by men and women dressed in bright colors. Not one pair of red eyes gave us more than a glance as we walked together, Wrath and I in military uniforms and Sloth having redonned the clothes she'd been wearing as Nina.

I'd almost let myself believe we'd be able to get out of town without incident when we came upon a construction site. Four soldiers supervised by the Gunslinger Alchemist were stripped to the waist, digging a foundation.

"You two," called out the State Alchemist, "quit wandering around, grab a shovel, and- Iron Sole?"

The other soldiers stopped digging when Gunslinger recognized me. Each readied a sidearm and waited for orders.

"Hi, Colonel," I said, hoping to avoid violence. "This is Sloth, and you've already met Wrath."

"Why'd you come back here? Colonel Swarm's got shoot on sight orders for you."

"Did he explain why that won't actually work?" I bluffed. "Or was that classified?"

The soldiers hesitated. Either they'd been there when I broke out of the base, or they'd heard about it from those who were.

"I guess that makes you a homonculus too," he said to Wrath.

"That's right," said Wrath, with a menacing grin. "So you might as well back away now. Even if you shoot us, we'll just keep coming back to life."

The soldiers were definitely intimidated by Wrath's words and manner. To be honest with myself, I would've been too. There was something about that kid that could be damn creepy when he wanted to be.

The Gunslinger Alchemist wasn't nearly so impressed. "My orders are to take down your friend here. If you don't get in the way, you won't get hurt."

"I'm not the one who should be worried about that," replied Wrath, taking a menacing step forward.

Then a shot rang out, and Wrath collapsed with a bullet between his eyes. I couldn't tell which of the nervous soldiers had opened fire. Gunslinger barely had time to get out, "Damnit" when I stomped my foot and slabs of ground beneath the feet of each soldier stood up vertically, launching Gunslinger's backup backward and forming a small barrier in case they tried to return fire.

His broken arm from the last time he encountered Wrath now fully healed, the Gunslinger Alchemist drew his heavy revolver and pointed it at one of the freshly transmuted walls. When the bullet hit, arcs of golden light accompanied the stone wall's transformation into a cannon, aimed and primed to take my head off, while leaving a clear shot for the soldier behind to follow up with his own fire once he recovered.

The cannon fired, and at first, I thought he missed. Then felt Sloth pressed against my lower body, clinging tight. "We need to go," she said urgently, "before he figures out how to use his alchemy to bypass my protection."

"Not without Wrath," I insisted.

In response, Sloth scrambled up my back, wrapped her legs around my neck, held on to my forehead, and said, "Then let's go!"

A bullet from the soldier behind the cannon passed through my chest as we had that brief conversation. Then Gunslinger shot the ground beneath my feet. A slab of earth catapulted backward, mimicking my earlier transmutation. The material shifted composition as it moved. Clearly the Swarm Alchemist wasn't the only one who'd been reading my reports.

Sloth's trick couldn't protect us, but the first thing I'd ever put on my shoes was an array designed to keep my footing in difficult terrain, and through all the iterations, that core feature had survived. I ran up the moving slab as it flicked to launch me. My shoes' alchemy kept me bound to the surface and I was able to jump over the top and propel myself to where Wrath had fallen.

Two more shots rang out as I picked up Wrath, then I saw that I'd fallen into Gunslinger's trap. The two new falls he transmuted linked in seamlessly with the ones he and I had transmuted only moments ago, sealing us together inside a makeshift room.

"I'm sorry about the boy," he said. "He didn't have to get involved in all this."

As the Gunslinger Alchemist took aim, a hand grenade fell through the open ceiling of the room, then exploded, pouring out thick white smoke, but causing no real damage. A line of golden alchemic light cut an arch out of the wall behind me, and I recognized Leo holding the glowing sword he'd once tried to cut me in half with.

"Hurry, this way," he called, and I ran after him.

A younger boy met up with him, and the pair led the way through alleys at a dead run. Carrying Wrath's body, I was barely able to keep up. Eventually, when we were all satisfied we'd evaded pursuit, Leo pulled aside a curtain and led me into a room filled with bright cushions, wall hangings, and a surprised looking bald man with a mustache.

"Rick, Leo, what's this all about?" Seeing Wrath, he demanded in a firm, calm tone, "What happened?"

"One of the soldiers killed him," said Rick, the younger boy. "The State Alchemist with the revolver was going to kill him too."

"We're sorry, Master," said Leo as he got to his knees. "We know we shouldn't do anything to provoke the military, but we couldn't just let them all die."

"I never meant to draw you or your people into my troubles," I apologized.

"You're one of the reasons our troubles have eased this past while," retorted the older Ishbalan. "I think we can stand to return some of that favor."

At that, Rick and Leo turned to one another and smiled. "Thank you, Master," said Leo.

The man stood up as Sloth hopped down from my shoulders, avoiding eye contact with Leo, who, so far, showed no sign of recognizing her brown haired, blue eyed form.

"I can take your friend to be interned among our people's dead," the Master offered, extending his arms out toward me.

"He's not dead," I said, keeping hold of Wrath. "He isn't human, and a bullet to the brain isn't necessarily fatal to him."

"He's like Sloth-" started Leo, then his eyes shot to where she stood, avoiding his gaze.

"That's right," she said, and shifted he hair and eyes to the black and purple they'd been when she'd come to Ishbal last.

The array engraved on Leo's sword started to glow yellow again as he stared at Sloth with gritted teeth.

The Master held up a hand in front of Leo, then said, "I think some explanations are in order, but first you should come with me."

"But Master, she-" started Leo before he was cut off.

"You are the one who offered these people our hospitality. We will judge what to do next later, but for now, they are our guests."

That was the end of Leo's protest, but he kept an angry gaze fixed on Sloth as the Master led us to a hidden safe room that had been dug under the house. Once I'd laid Wrath down on the dirt floor, the Master had us all sit in a circle.

"I'm sorry, Leo," Soth said once we settled down.

"Why are you two together?" demanded Leo. "I thought you were trying to stop her plan."

"I was," I replied. "She isn't pursuing that goal anymore."

"Brother, what's going on?" asked Rick. "How do you know that girl, and why are you so angry at her?"

Leo looked guiltily at the Master, and said, "Remember when things were getting bad again? When it looked like there was going to be another war? Sloth showed up and offered to teach me how to fight the State Alchemists on their own level."

"She gave you your sword?" asked Rick.

"No," said Sloth, "but I gave him a red stone and pointed him toward the alchemist who did make him the sword. I was trying to trick him, get him dependent on the stone so he'd pursue the Grand Arcanum and try to fight the military with the Philosopher' Stone."

"What changed your mind?" asked Leo, practically spitting.

"I did," I replied. "Quite literally, actually. The alchemist who'd created her was manipulating her by selectively suppressing her memories. Once I unlocked them all, she had a lot of regrets to deal with."

"I am sorry for what I tried to make you do, Leo."

"Are you aware of why the military is hunting me?" I asked.

The Master shook his head and didn't push. He just waited patiently for me to say what I felt was important.

"I performed a human transmutation," I said, deciding to avoid drawing out the rejection time. "I created this homonculus body and attached my soul to it."

"Go on," he replied.

"Um, that's it," I said, unsure what more he wanted to hear.

"Was anyone hurt or killed in doing this?" he asked.

"Just me," I said. "The process was incredibly painful, and my old body died, but I did everything away from other people so no one else could get hurt."

"Then I have no objection to you staying here for as long as you need."

"Thank you," I said, bowing. "With how your people feel about alchemy in general, I expected you to respond even worse than the Amestrans to human transmutation."

"The Ishbalan people draw from a different history and set of traditions. Human alchemy holds no special taboo for us. You are a sinner for your use of alchemy to begin with, but Ishbala proscribes no one use more than others."

"Um," said Rick, pointing at Wrath's corpse, "are you sure he isn't dead? Because he looks pretty dead, and he still isn't moving."

"He needs to get some red stones in his system, then he should heal and come back to life."

"Hold on a minute," said Leo. "Red stones? I've been talking to the Exile. Those are made by sacrificing human lives."

"Not the kind I make," I declared. "A while back, I ran into a pair of alchemists who'd figured out how to do it using plants. They taught me how."

"The Exile says it's the only way."

"He's wrong. In my lab out to the northeast, I have some plants that can metabolize red water and crystallize a weak stone."

"Our people turned away from alchemy a long time ago," noted the Master. "It's hardly surprising that they've learned secrets we have not."

"The problem is, even if the lab's intact, it'll take three days before we'll have anything useable."

"Will he last that long?" asked Rick.

"I don't know," I admitted. "In theory, he should be fine, just needing more stones to fix any new damage that accumulates in the meantime, but I've never even tested it when someone's this far gone."

"Now that you've been spotted, they'll be scouring the city for you," said Leo. "If you lay low, eventually they'll decide you left town, but..." he trailed off regarding Wrath.

"We do still have some red stones," said Sloth hesitantly.

"Then what have you been waiting for?" I demanded. "Feed them to Wrath, and I'll reimburse you when we make more."

"I can't," she said.

A moment later, I realized what she was talking about. "The stones already in your system. You were the only one of us who didn't get drained by Hohenheim's security system."

"You can reproduce the array, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," I acknowledged. "This'll hurt quite a bit."

"We don't have a lot of choice. Even if we can evade the patrols, three days might be too long for him."

I nodded and clapped my hands. I touched the dirt next so Sloth and used alchemy to scribe the transmutation circle from that day around her. She gave a nod. I turned to the Master.

"Do you have a bucket?"

He nodded, then gestured for Rick to retrieve one. I put it in front of Sloth, then paused to pull her twin braids of black hair back. She shuddered involuntarily at the gentle caress along the back of her neck. I stayed in the circle with her, holding her hair. I didn't have any red stones in my system, so I shouldn't be effected.

I touched the array, and it glowed blue. Sloth doubled over in pain, but managed to fight through it enough to keep hold of the bucket. She vomited red stones into the bucket along with a considerable amount of clear fluid.

I saw some of the smaller stones she vomited into the bucket melt into red water and the larger ones start to lose their shape as well. There was a time sensitive aspect to this I hadn't accounted for.

"Rick, Leo," I called out, "hurry and get as many of these stones down Wrath's throat as you can before they melt!"

"Now!" demanded the Master when they hesitated, moving to Wrath's body and prying open his jaws himself.

"So gross," complained Leo as he dug a handful of melting red stones out of the puke bucket before rushing to where Wrath lay.

"Yeah," giggled Rick," but think of how it must be for him." Rick indicated Wrath as he shoved a handful of red goop into his mouth.

I did what I cold to comfort Sloth while I kept energy circulating through the array. I was starting to worry this wasn't going to work when Wrath convulsed. The Ishbalans backed away as the bullet hole in his head closed and his limbs jerked.

Wrath woke up screaming as Sloth finished emptying the last of her red stones into the bucket.

"You're okay," I told him from a distance.

"You're among friends," added the Master, keeping Leo and Rick behind him.

His eyes focused, and Wrath calmed considerably. Using his organic hand, Wrath poked himself in the forehead where the bullet hole had been.

"Lust said I wouldn't come back without stones in me." He was confused.

"Sloth gave you her stones to bring you back," I said. Then I clapped and touched my thumb to Sloth's cheek, cleaning her mouth with alchemy. She smiled at me, then I approached Rick and Leo clapping my hands.

"Hey," protested Leo," you can't use alchemy on us."

"It's just a deconstruction," I said. "Besides, red water's highly toxic to humans."

The pair hesitated a moment longer, then extended their hands. I touched one hand to each of theirs, and blue sparks of alchemic light surged across their hands, turning the red water stains on them blue, then flaking them away leaving their hands clean.

"Well," I said," now none of us can regenerate anymore. We need to get to that lab."

"Stay hidden for a few days," advised the Master. "You won't be hurt while you're here, so you won't need to heal."

"What do we do if they've already found the lab by the time we get there?" asked Sloth.

"I don't know," I admitted. "We need those seeds. We might be able to track down the Tringam brothers, but without those stones, we don't stand a chance against Shao."

"Who's Shao?" asked Rick.

"The alchemist who made me," said Sloth.

"He has the Philosopher Stone," added Wrath.

"And after everything he did in its pursuit," I gave Leo a meaningful look, "I don't trust him with the Stone's power."

"So instead, you'll claim it for yourself?" asked the Master.

"I need it," said Wrath, "to bring Mommy back."

"I don't know for sure how to do it," I said. "The lesser stones provided a small burst of insight when I touched them. I do know the last time someone succeeded at a resurrection, it used up the Stone completely. So I don't expect to have it for very long even in the best case scenario."

"You can do that?" asked Rick. "You can bring people back to life?"

"Usually, when you try, you end up with a homonculus, but Wrath's seen it done right once."

"Such pursuit is a selfish endeavor," said the Master. "Our fallen loved ones dwell in the house of Ishbala. We will all go to join them one day, but it would be cruel to them to bring them back to this world of pain, even if it were possible."

"He's right, Rick," said Leo. "Mom," he sniffed, "mom's in a better place right now."

"A better place?" asked Wrath.

"I'm sure your mother is at peace now as well," said the Master.

"We're still going after Shao," I said. "The Stone's power shouldn't be in the hands of a man who'd turn his own daughter into a weapon."

"I'll help you," said Leo. "I've been studying, and I can use the sword on my own now."

"No," I said, before anyone else could speak. "I do appreciate everything you've done so far, but you can't come with us where we're going."

"But-" stated Leo.

Sloth cut him off, "If we do need anything from you, we'll send word."

Leo seemed satisfied with that, and the Master ushered the boys out of the room, leaving we homonculi to ourselves.

"We will need help," said Sloth when they were gone.

"I know," I said. "But I don't want to involve Leo anymore than we already have. We'll find somebody else."

. . .

We stayed in the cellar for four days. Wrath was quiet, seeming deep in thought, the whole time. Rick and Leo stopped by regularly to bring us food. I tried to explain that we didn't need it, but they were really uncomfortable with us not eating, so we accepted the food and ate.

On the fifth day, Rick brought good news. The search parties had given way to work crews again. Rick led the three of us around the soldiers and got us safely to the edge of the desert.

Leaving Rick behind, I led the others to the general area I'd had the lab.

"Okay," I said, "the lab's about thirty feet underground. I know we're in the right area, and it doesn't look like it's been dug up. We need to find the exact spot.

Sloth started bobbing down into the ground and back up, stepping about ten feet between each check. I transmuted a column of sand into glass and back with each step of my search pattern, knowing the alchemy would fail if there was anything but sand down there. Wrath kept a lookout.

Finally, I hit pay dirt. Signaling the others to join me, I transmuted a ladder in a stone tube leading down. I led the way and confirmed my tunnel went into the ceiling of the living area. Sloth and Wrath followed, and I went to the generator and switched the power back on.

"So, this is where you lived?" asked Sloth.

"Not for very long, actually," I replied. "I set things up here a little bit before I performed my human transmutation."

"Where are the stones?" asked Wrath.

"There aren't any," I said. "I need to make more."

I led them over to my garden lab, filled with red water holding tanks and lilly-white Philosopher's Flowers under grow lamp. I clapped my hands and accelerated the metabolism of a dozen o the flowers, causing them to produce seeds which I pocketed.

"These are the key to making red stones without sacrificing human lives," I said proudly. "If we can stay hidden for three days, I can produce plenty for us."

I poured red water over the roots of the plants to start the refinement process, then led the way out back to the living area. Sloth caught sight of the thick cushion Loki had used as a bed and paused.

I followed her gaze and felt a wave of grief and sadness wash over me. I fought to keep the tears from welling up for Sloth's sake, but I saw that she wasn't paying attention to me at all. She was sitting on the floor with her head in her hands sobbing. Between sobs, I could make out the word, "Alexander." I let the tears flow, and let myself mourn the fact that I'd never see my dog sleeping in that bed gain.

"Why are you crying?" asked Wrath. "We're going to get the Stone and fix everything."

My brain started working. I hadn't even thought of trying to bring back Loki with the Stone. I knew his alchemic makeup backward and forward. It would certainly be less risk, attempting an animal first. Of course, that would risk depleting the stone before we got the chance to raise the previous Sloth.

"Could you bring them back if you had the Stone?" asked Sloth, reading my mind.

"I don't know," I said, "and even if the answer turns out to be 'no' I don't want to get my hopes up, let alone yours. Cornello used a lesser stone to bring birds back to life, but I don't know if they had the same souls, or if the results were more like the bird version of homonculi."

"Mommy first, though," Wrath insisted.

"There probably won't be enough power in the stone to do more than one anyway," I noted. "And Wrath did ask first," I said with a weak smile.

"People before pets," agreed Sloth. "I do miss him though, and I've never even met Alexander. It must be even worse for you, Greed."

"Yeah," I acknowledged, letting myself show some of that pain. "But for now, I just have to move on without him."

I walked over to the entrance and sealed it off to keep anyone from finding us down here. I had the generator's exhaust feeding into a tank so I could transmute it back into fuel, so there was no need for a ventilation back to the surface, especially with nothing but homonculi in the lab, who didn't need to breathe.

Heading to an outer wall, I clapped my hands and slapped the stone. A rectangular door took shape under my fingertips in a wave of blue light, along with the empty room behind it.

"Here's your guest room, Wrath," I said. "Grab me that half-deconstructed footstool and Loki's old bed and I'll transmute you a bed."

"We don't need to sleep," Wrath reminded me.

"No," I acknowledged, "but we can, and I haven't got much chance to do that since going on the run. Look, I'll make the bed, and you can use it or not. The library's over there if you want to read. We've got three days, so settle in."

. . .

Author's Comments:  
Iron Sole never expected the Ishbalan people to be the ones to stick up for him after his human transmutation, but the Master at least has always kept a good sense of what's important.  
For those planning to skip the next chapter, chapter 18 opens after the trio have gotten a good night's sleep.


	17. Romantic Interlude 2

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 17) Romantic Interlude 2  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 18.  
***WARNING***

. . .

Once I had Wrath settled down, I told Sloth I needed to clean up. Then I headed over to the bathroom. Getting out of my clothes, I opened the shower door and smiled. There were no nozzles or waterspouts, just a transmutation circle carved into the center of the floor.

I stepped inside, and activated the circle with my feet. Blue light flowed from the array at my feet, and I savored the sensation of sand, and grease, and red water waste, and various grime slowly breaking down and flaking away. I could have set up the circle to finish in an instant, but I'd slowed it down so I could enjoy my time bathed in the light of the reaction.

I stepped out a few minutes later, clean, dry, and refreshed. At the speed of thought, my black pants and open vest appeared on my body and I walked barefoot out of the bathroom. Sloth was waiting in her black dress.

"You don't have to keep your promise," she said. "I wasn't being fair when I made you make it."

"So, you did change your mind."

"I did what you said. I spent the trip going through my mind and figuring out who I am. And I decided I didn't want to be the sort of person who'd pressure you into sex. And that's what I was doing before. I'm sorry."

"I'm glad you feel that way," I said, smiling warmly.

She sighed. "Like you said, we have forever. That should be long enough to find someone who likes this body that way."

"I'll be honest," I said, "I'm not really comfortable with you taking other lovers."

Sloth looked at me confused for a moment, then comprehension dawned.

"Maybe other girls," I continued, "but only if I get to watch and join in."

I scooped Sloth up in my arms and kissed her deeply on the lips as I carried her into the master bedroom.

"Are you sure?" she asked after I set her down on the bed.

I nodded. "Are you?"

"You already touched me in the most intimate place I have," she turned to show off the oroboros mark on her shoulder. Of course I'm sure."

With that, her dress vanished, and I was staring at her naked back. Fair was fair, and I dismissed my clothes as well. There was a sharp intake of breath as she gazed over her shoulder and took in the details of my form.

"Let's take this slow," I whispered in Sloth's ear as I ran my fingers along her bare shoulders, not quite touching her oroboros.

When I let my fingers drift away, Sloth turned to face me, and I saw her beautiful flat chest and barely visible nipples. My gaze drifted down, past her flat stomach and to what little of her hairless crotch was visible with her legs pressed together. Sloth reached out to me, and ran her small fingers along the sides of my neck and down my chest, passing along either side of my oroboros.

I leaned down to kiss her again, and felt her tongue licking my lips and searching for mine. I slid a hand down from the small of her back and cupped her butt cheek, putting my other hand on her unmarked shoulder as I pulled us closer together.

When we were close enough, Sloth reached behind my head, and ran her fingers through my hair as she gently pulled my head towards her, silently urging me to kiss her deeper.

I ran a hand from her butt down her leg, enjoying the smooth skin and firmness of her thigh, stopping when my hand reached her hooked knee. Then I slid my other hand under her armpit and spread out my fingers across her chest.

I drew back my head just a bit from her mouth, and kissed her chin, then the side of her neck. With her mouth not otherwise occupied, Sloth let out small moans of pleasure. Her hands, still at the back of my head, guided my lips lower.

I shifted my hands to her narrow hips as I started kissing my way across her chest. When I got to her left nipple, I kissed once, twice, then teased at it with my tongue.

Sloth shifted her legs as she went to lean into me, and I took a hand from her hips and slid it along her lap until I was touching her labia again. Unlike when I touched her on the train, heat was coming off her body, and I felt a trace of moisture after my hand adjusted to the heat.

I moved to suckle on her other nipple, and Sloth squeezed her legs together, pinning my fingers in place. Sloth moaned louder as she shifted her hips and ground against my hand. Her labia parted, and I felt her clitoris rub against my finger. Sloth gasped in surprise and squeezed her legs tighter.

I applied pressure to her clitoris as I continued to suck on her hard nipple. Her body started trembling, and she let go of my head to hold my hand in place. I moved my other hand to her back and brought my head back up. Sloth's eyes were closed, and her mouth was opened wide as she gasped for breath between loud, high pitched moans.

I kissed her mouth hungrily, and she pulled my tongue into her mouth with the force of her next gasp. I toyed with her clit as best I was able with my pinned hand.  
Then, every muscle in her small body tensed, and she tried to call out with my mouth closed over hers. She held that for a moment longer, then her body started to relax, and her legs opened.

I laid Sloth down on the bed while she panted and trembled from the experience, then withdrew my hand from her crotch. I looked her in her slowly opening eyes as I held those fingers up to my nose, inhaling her fragrance, then put those fingers in my mouth one by one, enjoying her taste.

"Glad we're starting slow?" I asked, beaming down at her sexy body. There were so many more things I wanted to do with her.

"Wait," she said, haltingly, climbing to her knees. "Lay down. It's my turn."

Letting Sloth take the lead, I did as she said and laid flat on my back. Sloth straddled my chest and leaned forward, giving me a terrific view of first her butt, then her slightly spread labia visible between her spread legs.

Then I felt her tiny fingers exploring the shaft of my erect penis. I reached out and fondled her butt in response. Sloth looked over her shoulder and said, "Stop it. Let me concentrate on you for a minute."

I withdrew my hands, and she turned her attention back to my penis. I enjoyed the view as her fingers started moving up and down, her hand not able to close all the way around. It was my turn to give a surprised gasp as her tongue touched the tip of my penis.

Sloth pulled her head back sharply, then she turned and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I replied. "Just a little startled. Didn't mean I wanted you to stop."

She smiled and turned back, licking the tip of my penis more aggressively. Sloth let go with one hand, then ran her lips and tongue down the length, using her other hand to hold it in place. When she got to the base, she ran her tongue around it, switched hands, then went back up the other side with her mouth.

My breath came in short bursts, and I issued appreciative moans with each exhale. She closed her lips around the tip of my penis and started sucking, as she pumped with one hand, and used the other to prop herself up with my leg.

"That feels very good," I said when I could no longer keep my head up to stare at her ass.

I could feel her tongue flicking across the top of my penis as she pulled it deeper into her mouth, opening her jaw without breaking the seal. She was trying to fit the head completely into her mouth. One hard suck later, and it was in, and I could feel her lips come together just past that point.

I could feel myself approaching orgasm, and for a moment, I thought I should try to hold off and save some stamina, but with the new surge of suction from Sloth's small mouth, I gave in. Cum spurted into her mouth, filling what little space was left in seconds, as more continued to squirt out.

The motions of her tongue as she tried to swallow my cum with the head of my penis already filling her mouth drew my orgasm out further, and I spurted even more semen into her already overfull mouth. The seal of her lips broke, and some of my cum went down her chin and some went in the direction of her nose as she finally managed to swallow.

Sloth got the rhythm of swallowing in time with my ejaculation in time to drink down two loads perfectly before I was spent. Sloth continued to lick up the cum that fell back onto my penis, then gave my softening penis two more full pressure sucks before sitting upright then laying side by side with me.

I smiled appreciatively when I saw the clear white fluid ringing her smiling mouth and dribbling down her chin.

"That was amazing," I told her.

Sloth absently ran her tongue over her teeth with her mouth closed, and swallowed again, and I wanted her even more.

Pushing past my post-orgasm lethargy, I groped her flat chest again before climbing down. Sloth was laying on her back now, and was absently wiping the cum on her chin into her mouth with a finger. I placed a hand on each of her thighs and spread her legs. My eyes darted between the expectant smile on her semen-soaked lips and her moist vulva.

I licked along the outside first, and she let her arms fall to her sides, and her head fall back. Keeping a hand on each knee, I flicked my tongue over her clit, and had to hold her legs open as she tried to draw them together. Once again, I felt her small hands on the back of my head, urging me further as she groaned in pleasure.

I pursed my lips and applied suction to her clit for just a moment, then parted her labia fully with my tongue and started to explore inside. I continued to tease at her swollen clit with my upper lip as I found her vaginal opening with my tongue. Taking a deep breath through my nostrils, enjoying her scent, I pressed the tip of my tongue inside her vagina.

Sloth pushed hard on the back of my head, and started to rhythmically thrust her hips, helping me get my tongue deeper into her very tight vagina. The pressure on my tongue was wonderful, and Sloth's enthusiasm soon had my erection returning. It was a little painful so soon after orgasm, but I focused on the small child humping my face, and I got through that just fine.

I moved my tongue around, feeling the texture of her vaginal wall as I tried to remember to keep teasing her clit with my lip. I opened my mouth wide without extracting my tongue and tried, on a whim, to see how much of her vulva I could fit my lips around.

Then Sloth suddenly pressed hard and held it, while I felt her already tight vagina squeeze my tongue even tighter. It clenched again and again, then I felt something squirt into my open mouth. I held it there to taste it later, and she squirted twice more in time with her vaginal contractions squeezing my tongue. I moved my tongue a bit when her orgasm ran its course, and managed to elicit two more vaginal contractions before I pulled my tongue out of her vagina, licked all the way past her clit, then closed my mouth to taste the sweet fluid I'd been holding in my mouth.

I swallowed gratefully, then climbed up to look her in the eye. We smiled at each other for a long moment, then I directed her gaze to my once again erect penis.

"Your vagina's really tight," I told her, the smile never leaving my face. "I'd like to try to fit my penis in, but I'm going to need a lot of help."

"What can I do?" she asked, inserting two of her own small fingers into her vagina to confirm my observation.

"Guide my penis in with your hand," I instructed, "then try to relax as much as you can."

She nodded, then spread her legs as wide as she could, withdrew her fingers, and held her hand open, waiting for me. I climbed into position, with one knee on either side of her knees, and my elbows propping me up on either side of her temples. I took a moment to appreciate the beauty of her undeveloped body waiting to receive me, then I shifted my hips forward and felt her hand close gently on my penis.

I shifted forward slowly, giving her as much time as she needed to make adjustments. The last I saw of her face, she was looking down her body and concentrating. Once my head was past hers, I was navigating by touch, and relying on Sloth to keep us lined up.

I felt the tip of my penis touch her and she said, "Stop for a second."

I complied and held my position while Sloth ran the tip of my penis up and down her crotch, brushing lightly against everything from her butt-hole to her clit twice before she stopped moving it.

"You ready, or did you want to rub me along the outside some more?" I asked playfully.

She giggled nervously, then said, "You can go now."

"You sure?" I asked. "There's no hurry."

She paused, then ran my penis over her crotch one more time, then said, "Now I'm ready."

I laughed a little myself, then carefully pushed forward a fraction of an inch. She shifted my penis side to side and used it to part her labia fully, then took a moment to position me.

When she stopped, I pushed forward again, now grateful I'd let myself ejaculate in her mouth, since otherwise I was sure I'd have gone off by this point.

Sloth guided the tip of my penis into her tight vagina, and kept a guiding hand on the shaft as I gently rocked back and forth, the very tip inside her, and her outer labia not reaching the shaft of my penis.

"I'm going to push a little harder now," I announced, then pressed into her with enough force to get half the head of my penis inside her. She was very tight and I wasn't sure I'd be able to go any deeper without hurting her. I ground back and forth at that depth for a while, enjoying the sensation of her tight vagina on the tip of my penis.

Reading my mind, Sloth said, "I think I can take more in. I'll tell you to stop if it's too much."

I lifted myself higher on my hands so I could look her in the eye, and incidentally get a good look at her gorgeous prepubescent body laid out, with my penis lined up and partially inside her.

"Okay," I said, "but I'll go slow."

I started rocking back and forth again, on each forward thrust, pushing an imperceptible amount deeper. I felt her tight vagina spread little by little, and I watched mesmerized as the head of my penis disappeared fully from view inside her body, Sloth grunting and gasping the whole way, but never even starting to say 'stop'.

I paused when the head was fully inside her, let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding, then said, "The head's all the way in. I didn't think we could do it, but now we know you can take my girth."

Sloth sucked in a breath, let a trail of drool run down her cheek, and said, "Let's see how deep it can go."

Taking one last look at her freshly penetrated body, I lowered myself down and again prepared to navigate by feel.

Knowing for sure she could take it, I was a little bolder thrusting my penis deeper. I rocked back and forth, each forward thrust forcing my penis a quarter inch or more further in, her tight vagina not letting me backslide, despite all the lubrication from our extended foreplay. She gasped as I thrust forward and let out small, saved up moans as I pulled back to let the pressure off.

I'd made it an inch or so further in, when my progress was halted by her orgasm, which held my penis firmly in place with each contraction. I kept the pressure inward on as she called out with a halting moan that raised in pitch each time she gasped for breath between contractions.

This time I did hold myself back from orgasm, clenching every muscle in my lower body, and I rode out hers. When her contractions stopped, and her breathing steadied, I asked, "Ready for me to continue?"

Another contraction came at my words, and she called out, "Yes!"

I happily obliged, pressing further in with each stroke, until the tip of my penis came up against something. A little over half my penis had made it inside her tiny body, and her whole body tensed when I bumped up against her cervix.

"That's..." she tried to say.

I pulled slightly back, taking the pressure off, and asked, "What?"

"That's..." she gasped again, then continued, "...that's all the way in. Oh, I can feel it so far inside me."

"I wonder how far in you'll feel my cum," I offered before pulling a bit further back, fighting the grip of her vagina, then thrust forward again, bumping her cervix and triggering another vaginal contraction.

Three more times I trust, relaxing my body as much as I could. Sloth gasped and swallowed in time with each thrust. Then I felt my orgasm approaching, and I pulled my penis halfway out before forcing it all the way inside, the tip just touching her cervix as I ejaculated inside her. I held that position for five spurts, then pulled back and forced it inside again, pumping my semen into her.

When I'd emptied every drop I had into her, and my penis started to go flaccid, I pressed a little harder, managing to fit a little of my penis inside her that hadn't fit erect. Then I gradually lowered myself until our bodies were pressed together, and I rolled us over onto our side.

"Not bad for our first try," I said, looking over her beautiful body as she lay there completely relaxed, careful not to remove my penis.

"Can we do that again?" she asked.

"Sorry," I said, groping her flat chest again. "Until we get those red tones, we're both limited to human endurance. And I'm spent."

"Can we at least stay like this?" she asked, putting a hand on my butt.

"I was hoping you'd say that," I said as I put my free hand on her butt. We went to sleep after a few more minutes of feeling one another's post-coital bodies.

. . .

I woke first, still holding her in my arms, though our genitals had separated at some point during the night. I kissed her forehead, rubbed her chest, and slid my erect penis down her inner thigh before climbing out of bed to admire her from a better angle.

The semen around her mouth had dried, forming a white crust broken only where a line of drool still trailed down her cheek. Her brown braids were undisturbed. Her chest rose and fell serenely.

I don't know how long I stood gazing at her before she stirred, squeezed her legs together, stretched her arms out, and opened her eyes.

"No regrets about last night?" I asked her.

"Only that it didn't last longer," she replied. Then teasingly, "Hurry up with those red stones, will ya?"

That was when Wrath started banging on the bedroom door. "Get up!" he yelled. "We're in trouble."

I saw my disappointment mirrored in Sloth's face, then she phased through her drool, my semen, and other assorted bodily fluids, leaving herself completely clean as she willed her black dress to appear. I clapped my hands and cleaned up similarly fast with my alchemy, then willed on my pants and vest as I opened the door.

. . .

Author's Comments:  
Sloth and Greed have officially consummated their relationship. The shower scene at the beginning was one I'd wanted to fit in for some time, and I think it sets the tone nicely.


	18. Family Reunion

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 18) Family Reunion  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

An opening had appeared in the ceiling, in the exact same spot I'd transmuted our tunnel down. As I opened the door, two hand grenades fell into the room. I clapped my hands and slapped a hand against the doorframe, transmitting the reaction through the wall and floor, causing a small dome to slide out of the floor and cover the grenades. I'd made it just in time, since the dome was still putting off small blue sparks when we heard the muffled explosions.

"How'd they find us so quickly?" asked Sloth.

"They probably found the lab while I was away and left it, just hoping I'd come back."

A swarm of insect chimeras followed the grenades down the tube. I sealed the entrance with alchemy, then turned to see both my companions waiting for me.

"Wrath," I barked, "head for the library and grab Dante's notebook. Sloth, get to the garden and grab as many seeds as you can. It hasn't been long enough for a stone, but with those we can start over."

The other homonculi scrambled to carry out their orders as I darted to the bathroom. Finding my clothes piled where I'd left them, I clapped my hands, touched the pile, and willed away my black outfit. The blue military uniform's weave opened up and wrapped itself around me, trailing small sparks of blue alchemic light the while way. I stepped into my boots and stomped, using the arrays on each boot to lace and tie them, the laces glowing blue as they went. All totaled, I was dressed in five seconds.

Gold lightning shot through the lab's walls, transmuting them into silver, then steel, then back to sandstone, then concrete. I was starting to regret writing all those reports.

Wrath and Sloth returned. Sloth said, "Greed-"

"I know," I cut her off. "We're trapped."

A bullet impacted the makeshift seal I'd put over the tunnel, and the seal, currently made of iron, opened, letting the Swarm Alchemist's deadly insect chimeras in.  
Wrath swung Dante's notebook at one of the chimeras, flattening it against the floor. When he withdrew the book for another swing, the chimera was unharmed, and it immediately stung Wrath right in his automail hand. The stinger actually penetrated the steel outer casing.

Sloth grabbed each of us by the hand and phased us through the swarm of chimeras.

"I can keep us save from them," she said, "but you need to get us out of here before they use something else tailored to my powers."

I looked around and smiled. I'd learned so much since my time with Cornello's cult. The most important lesson: alchemy isn't magic. There are rules and hard limits on what an alchemist can and can't accomplish. Whoever was transmuting the walls had to guess at their initial composition, and he was only doing as well as he was because I'd constructed the lab out of a uniform, predictable material. The same wasn't true of the furniture.

Shifting Sloth's hand to my belt, I clapped, then grabbed hold of the carved, wooden table. A moment later, the table was gone, and a thin piston reaching from the floor to the ceiling stood in its place, giving off blue sparks. An instant after the transmutation concluded, an explosion inside the piston forced it apart with enough force to punch a hole through the floor.

"What was that?" asked Sloth.

"I used the carbon in the wood to reinforce the piston to diamond hardness, and filled it with a pressurized mix of hydrogen and oxygen. After that, chemistry did the rest."

"The hole's too small," noted Wrath. "We can't fit through there."

Taking the initiative, Wrath kicked at parts of the still transmuting floor that had been cracked by my piston, then started prying up damaged sections of floor with his mechanical limbs.

I was the one who noticed when the Gunslinger Alchemist dropped in through the hole in the ceiling. I stomped the floor, hoping to gt the drop on him before he assessed the situation. Unfortunately, the floor's composition was still shifting, and nothing happened.

The Gunslinger Alchemist had his revolver out already, and when he spotted us, fired at a light fixture overhead. The bulb over our heads that he shot exploded downward on us like a shotgun, each shard transmuted into a different material. It was more than Sloth could keep up with, and I felt the sting of three sharpened shards penetrating my right forearm, left shoulder, and the right side of my neck.

Sloth was bleeding from a cut somewhere behind her hairline, and Wrath's two organic limbs took a pair of hits each.

Brushing aside the pain, I clapped my hands and transmuted the piston into a handheld shield. The Gunslinger Alchemist took the bait, firing on my shield to use it as material for his transmutation. His bullet hit and bounced off harmlessly. Like in Liore, I'd kept the reaction that created the shield circulating, so when his transmutation-inscribed bullet hit, my transmutation clashed with his, and my alchemy proved stronger.

That wasted shot gave Wrath the time he needed to widen the hole in the floor enough for Sloth to phase us through the sand below and make our escape. Throwing the shield at Gunslinger as a distraction, I jumped into the hole alongside the others.

. . .

Traveling underground was disconcerting to say the least. I couldn't see anything, and Sloth kept making sharp turns every ten steps or so. We were walking along what felt like solid ground, with a mostly upward slope, and that was the only solid matter I could feel other than Sloth's hand guiding me.

I was still bleeding from my injuries and knew the others would be as well. I kept one hand pressed against the side of my neck to slow the blood loss until Sloth got us somewhere I could do more.

After what felt like an hour of aimless wandering, the three of us emerged through the wall of the Ishbalan safe room we'd been staying in before heading for the lab.

"How did you find this place from underground?" I asked Sloth as I clapped my hands and transmuted the skirting of the military uniform I was wearing into a roll of bandages.

"I got a lot of practice at it every time you drove me off, and more whenever I needed to get somewhere without being seen." She reached a hand through my body and plucked out the pieces of shrapnel still lodged in me.

Sloth and I worked in silence for a few minutes, her digging out shrapnel from herself, Wrath, and I, and me wrapping the wounds. When I was tying off the last of Wrath's bandages, Sloth spoke up again.

"I'm sorry I wasn't good enough to phase us through that attack."

"If anyone should be blaming themselves here, it should be me," I countered. "I'm the one who taught them how to overcome your powers in the first place."

"It doesn't matter," said Wrath. "We can just go somewhere else, you can make the stones there, and we'll heal."

"He's right," I agreed.

"Right," said Sloth. "So where are we going next?"

"I've been thinking about that. You were right that we need help. The question is, who's both powerful enough that they could help, who'd also actually be willing to work with us?

"The military's made it pretty clear where we stand with them. Most everyone who hasn't turned on us over the taboo aren't the sort of people who'd be a lot of help taking down a rogue State Alchemist with a Philosopher Stone. At the moment, I can only think of one place we might find what we need, and you're not going to like it." That last comment was directed at Wrath.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Dublith," I replied. "Izumi Curtis and Alphonse Elric were both taboo breakers themselves, and despite what happened, Wrath, Izumi wants to make things right with you."

"Make things right?" he asked, skeptically.

"You didn't stay when I went in and talked to her. She told me what happened. That she gave you back to the Gate when you were born. She's genuinely haunted by that mistake, and asked me to tell you how sorry she was."

"I don't want to see her," he replied.

"What's more important to you, Wrath, getting that Stone back from Shao or not facing Izumi?" I demanded.

"You wouldn't be alone," added Sloth, softening the blow. "We'd both be right there to keep you save and offer moral support."

"I really don't think she means you harm," I added, "but if I'm wrong about that, do you really think we'd just leave you there?"

"Okay," said Wrath after a long moment.

That settled, the three of us climbed out of the safe room and interrupted the Ishbalan Master as he was reading.

"We got what we needed," I told him. "Thanks for everything."

"You're hurt," he noted.

"Nothing too serious," I replied.

"Will that heal over time without your stones?" he asked.

"I'll be honest, I'm a little new at this. I'd always assumed so. Sloth? Wrath?"

"I was never really low on stones before now," admitted Sloth.

"It heals," said Wrath. Then, clenching his automail fist, "a least if a human could heal it."

"Where will yo go now?" asked the Master.

"I'd rather not say," I replied.

"Ah, you're afraid we'd say something to the military."

"Actually, I'm afraid you'd say something to Leo."

"Well then, I'll just wish you well. May Ishvala watch over you on your journey."

"We should go before they get word back here to stop the trains," said Sloth. "Thank you again for all you've done for us."

. . .

Sloth and I gave Wrath some space on the train trip, making sure he knew we were available to talk if he needed to, and otherwise leaving him alone with his thoughts. For our part, we spent the trip a bit frustrated at the lack of reliable privacy, even in the cargo cars we were hiding in.

Finally, our train reached Dublith. I'd discarded my military uniform, using the materials to transmute a new satchel for the book and seeds, and adopted my homonculus appearance to conform to my companions. Obviously, I kept my boots.

I led the way to the butcher shop where Izumi and Sig Curtis lived, and was pleasantly surprised to see no real military presence in this town, a feature I hadn't noticed on my last visit.

"Are you ready?" I asked Wrath.

He darted his eyes left and right, confirming his escape route, then nodded.

Sloth opened the door, and the three of us stepped in. Sig wasn't behind the counter. It was manned instead by a smaller, though still well built man wearing a white headband.

"How can I-" he started, then his eyes went wide. "Oh God!" he exclaimed and ducked behind the counter.

The three of us blinked in unison.

"Um, hello," I ventured, and heard him cringe behind the counter.

"This is stupid," declared Wrath, who reached over the counter with his automail arm and pulled the man out by his shirt.

"Please, don't kill me!" he begged.

"Don't look at me," said Sloth defensively. "I've never even been to this town before."

"We aren't here to kill anyone," I said. "We're looking for Izumi."

"Oh, so that's why you're here," he said, calming down immediately. "So you heard."

"Heard what?" demanded Wrath.

"I thought..." he stammered, then said, "Izumi's dying. I'm sorry."

"Dying?" asked Wrath, confused.

"We need to see her," I said.

"Of course. Sorry about freaking out like that. Given how things wen the last time you were here..." He trailed off, then turned from Wrath to Sloth and I. "The name's Mason, by the way."

"Sloth," she said, inclining her head.

"And I'm the new Greed."

"New Greed?" he asked.

"We can talk later," I said. "We need to see Izumi."

"Right. Follow me."

Mason locked up the shop and led the three of us to another room where Izumi lay in bed, with her giant of a husband, Sig, seated at her bedside.

"Mason, who," started Sig before he recognized one of our party. "Wrath?"

Izumi struggled to raise her head, but ultimately failed. "He's here?" she asked Sig.

"We're here if you need us. Go on," I encouraged.

Wrath stepped forward cautiously, and Sig stepped aside, keeping an eye on Sloth and I, but saying nothing.

"You're dying?" he asked, stepping to where Izumi could see him without lifting her head.

Izumi smiled. "My sins finally caught up with me. I am so sorry, Wrath," she flinched at the name. "I'm so sorry for everything."

"We need your help," I said, stepping into view behind Wrath and placing my hands on his shoulders.

Noting my appearance, she shook her head, wincing in pain as she did so. "I couldn't make you human even if I wasn't dying."

"None of us are interested in being human," I said, then looked between my companions for confirmation. Wrath slowly shook his head without taking his eyes off Izumi. Sloth smiled, almost seemed to blush, and also shook her head.

"Then what?" asked Sig. "Can't you see Izumi's in no state to help anyone?"

"I can fix that," I offered. "I can construct a homonculus body for you, and attach your soul to it. You'll be strong, healthy, potentially immortal, and you'll even be able to still use your alchemy."

"You can do that?" asked Sig, shocked.

"No!" declared Izumi with enough force to draw a flinch from Wrath and throw herself into a coughing fit, hacking up blood. Sig rushed to her side, supporting her head and cleaning away the blood until Izumi's spell passed.

"You can't put yourself outside the cycle of the natural world like that," she continued, now piercing me with her gaze. "I'm going to die, and I've made my peace with that. I won't be party to another disruption of the cycle." She closed her eyes and let her body relax.

"You don't get that choice!" I yelled, clapping my hands. I reached out to grab a lamp from her end table and transmuted a bit of its metal frame into a small metal disk, a couple inches wide. "We have traveled from one end of this country to the other looking for help! There is a madman with a Philosopher Stone who intends, among other things, to wipe your son's mind and make him a slave!" As I ranted, I cut open one of my fingers on a jagged ridge I left on the lamp and drew a seal on the metal disk using my own blood. "When your son is safe and you've paid your debts to him, then you can die!"

Izumi's eyes opened wide as I dropped the disk on the night stand and clapped my hands together. Placing one hand on Izumi's forehead and the other on the metal disk, blue light poured from my hands and the blood seal. When the transmutation ended, Izmi's eyes closed for the last time, and her labored breathing stilled.

"You bastard!" yelled Izumi's voice from the coin. With her broken body shed, her voice was stronger than I'd ever heard it. Everyone in the room humped at her angry voice. "What gives you the right to interfere?"

"Desperation," I answered quietly.

"Izumi," Sig asked, "are you alright?"

"I can see and hear, and apparently talk," she said, taking stock. "I can't feel anything, and I don't think I can move. God, is this what Alphonse went through?"

"This soul attachment is only temporary," I said. "Making your new body will take time, and I couldn't have you dying in the meantime."

"I never agreed to any of this," Izumi protested.

"I may not understand why you want to die instead of getting better, but I'll save your remains so if you still feel the same when this is all over, you can kill yourself."

"How long before you can fix her body?" asked Sig.

"What are you doing?" Izumi's disembodied voice demanded.

"You know I don't want to lose you," said Sig.

"We don't get to make that choice," she replied. "Hasn't everything we've seen of human transmutation shown you that?"

"I need some supplies, and an isolated place to do the work in," I told Sig. "Some of the materials I have to work with are highly toxic, and I don't want to do this someplace other people could get exposed."

"Mason," said Sig, "take them to Yok Island."

"Sure, boss," he said, hesitantly looking at Izumi's coin.

"Wrath," I said, "stay here with Izumi."

"Why?" he demanded, startled.

I tossed him Dante's notebook. "It'll be at least three days before we'll have a body for her. Read to her. Keep her mind occupied."

The rest of us walked out of the room, leaving Sig, Wrath, and Izumi. I grabbed a piece of paper and jotted down a shopping list for Mason of supplies I'd need to make red water.

"Sig wasn't going to leave her side," said Sloth. "So why leave Wrath with her?"

"She's helpless," I noted. "She couldn't do anything to hurt him if she wanted to. Wrath and her can talk, and maybe come to terms. Wrath isn't going to get a lot of chances to talk to her when he can feel perfectly safe."

"Even if we make her like you, she can only help so much."

"We've got a few days to figure out the rest of the plan."

. . .

Author's comments:  
Izumi may understand the temptation to attempt human alchemy, but she's deep into atonement mode. Fortunately, now she and Wrath can start to reconcile.  
For those of you planning to skip the next chapter, any information vital to understanding the continuing story will be repeated later on.


	19. Romantic Interlude 3

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 19) Romantic Interlude 3  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 20.  
***WARNING***

. . .

Mason left Sloth and I on Yok island, and I got yet another chance to put the architectural alchemy I'd designed for Ishbal to use. I made a few dozen underground labs to grow the Philosopher's Flowers in, hoping that enough red stones would help us stand up to a full Philosopher's Stone. That work went fairly quickly, and with the variety of materials on the island, I set up a small cottage overlooking the lake.

From there, I spent the rest of the day on the tedious task of alchemically accelerating the growth of the Philosopher's flower seeds we'd brought, and distributing the plants throughout the labs. I finished the work a little after sunset, and returned to the cottage to find Sloth waiting for me with a stack of papers.

"The labs all set up?" she asked.

"Everything's ready for when we get the red water supplies. Making this many stones at once is going to be a lot more work than I thought."

Sloth took my arm and drew me down to my knees for an affectionate embrace and a kiss. "I wouldn't want you to feel unappreciated."

"What's with the papers?" I asked, seating myself cross legged on the floor and lifting her onto my lap.

"While you were getting the labs ready, I was working out our next move. I think we can lure my father here with a ransom note."

"Ransom note?"

"Our fights with the State Alchemists would have been classified, so he has no way of knowing we're working together. The last time he saw me, I was in domestic doll mode. He may have assumed you kidnapped me on your way out, instead of us escaping together."

"So, I send him a letter demanding he come here to exchange the stone for Nina. But where would we send the letter to? He's probably abandoned the lab we broke out of by now."

"We send it care of Fuhrer Hakuro."

"Wait, the Fuhrer?"

"As Sloth, I was sent to talk to the Fuhrer about getting Shao reinstated into the military. He promised information and backing like Bradley had to let Hakuro consolidate power and shut the civilian government back out."

"What does Hakuro know about Bradley?"

"Before we talked, he didn't know Bradley was a homonculus. I don't think he really understands what that means."

"Okay, that covers getting him here when we're ready to fight. There's still the matter of how to win."

"Well, I'm thinking plan A is we play it like a hostage exchange. If I get close, I can steal the Stone from him and then he'll be harmless."

"I don't like the idea of you getting close. He could touch your oroboros and turn you back into his slave."

"Got an idea that can bump that one down to plan B?"

"You said he was trying to reproduce my experiment and turn himself into a homonculus, right?"

"Yeah."

"We hide flamel arrays on the island and trick or force him into one. He'll be incapacitated puking up stones and we jump him before he recovers."

"We'll be just as affected by those circles," she pointed out. "That seems even riskier than my plan."

"Only if we're the ones doing the jumping."

"What do you mean?"

"We could tell the Swarm Alchemist where we are and what we're planning."

"The guy who had you eaten alive by bugs?"

"He's not exactly our ally," I admitted, "but he's also not stupid. Shao's clearly the bigger threat."

"And after that?"

"He'll probably get back to trying to kill me."

"What about Hawkeye and her crew?"

"They're already on the same mission," I admitted. "They don't know you aren't one of the bad guys anymore."

"Send them a letter explaining everything to them, then. Worst case scenario, we're in the same boat with them we are with the Swarm Alchemist."

"One difference," I noted. "They have the expertise and remains to kill you permanently. Colonel Swarm doesn't."

"I think that's a risk we'll need to take. That expertise could help fighting my father too."

"Okay, we'll contact both at the same time we lure Shao in."

"One more thing," she said.

"What's that?"

"Could you build one of those prisons he had you and Wrath in?"

"Yeah," I said, not sure where she was going with this.

"I know Shao has to be stopped. I know if we take away the Philosopher Stone, he'll just go back to getting another one made. I know he used me, and I know a lot of how I feel is leftover programming, but he's my father. I don't want him to die."

"Sloth," I said, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and hugging her tightly as she buried her head in my chest. "You don't need to justify that. If we can take him alive, we will. We've both already got enough blood on our hands."

"Thanks for understanding," she said, and pulled back from the embrace just enough to bring her lips to mine and kiss me deeply. Her clothes vanished at some point, since when we came up for air, I was greeted by the sight of her beautiful naked body.

"You sure you don't want to wait until the stones are ready?" I teased. "All we've got is human stamina for now."

"We haven't had a moment's privacy since we had to flee your old lab. I'm not waiting another three days. I think I've shown remarkable patients letting you set up the labs first."

"Well then, would you mind helping me out of my shoes?"

Sloth grabbed my boots and phased them through my feet, tossing them aside as I dismissed my black pants and vest.

I ran my hands over either side of her torso, from her armpits to her hips, savoring the smooth, warm skin. As I did so, I uncrossed my legs and shifted my siting position. Sloth planted her feet on my hips as I lifted her into position.

She reached down with her right hand and guided my penis as she bent her knees and lowered herself, spreading her labia with her left hand. With the tip of my erect penis pressed against her tight vaginal opening, I let go of her hips and slid my hands round her body to grope her butt. Sloth brought her hands up, running them over my stomach and chest.

I slid my hands up her back as Sloth slowly took weight off her feet, and let that weight provide the pressure needed for my penis to gradually penetrate her. With my hands on her back, I gently pulled her into an embrace, pressing her flat chest against mine. In response, Sloth returned the embrace, and used it as leverage to slide herself further down my penis.

Sloth shifted her hips to keep herself centered and ensure my penis would go in straight as the head finally squeezed inside. I loved the feeling of her naked body sliding down mine as she continued to lower herself into my penis without pulling away from our embrace.

I ran my hands from her shoulders, down he naked back, squeezed her round butt cheeks, and continued down her thighs, feeling the tension in her muscles holding her up, then ran them back up the other way.

Her lips brushed against the oroboros mark in the center of my chest, and the intimacy of that moment sent a tingle through my body. I adjusted my hips and pressed into her as best I could at this angle as she pushed down. She left a trail of kisses across my chest before finding my nipple.

Sloth finally pulled herself down far enough that my penis lightly bumped against her cervix. She continued to alternately lick and suck on my nipple as she began bouncing up and down on my penis. I put one hand around her back, my palm over the oroboros on her shoulder, and the other pressed against the back of her head, gently urging her on.

I let out loud moans of pleasure, grateful for the isolation of the island, and determined to take full advantage. Sloth continued to suck on my nipple as she bobbed up and down on my penis, pausing only when she needed to let out a gasping cry of pleasure, while I felt her vagina tighten.

I could barely move. With every motion, I could feel her smooth skin sliding across mine, her tongue dancing over my hard nipple, and of course, her tight vagina squeezing my penis, with occasional pulses of her contractions. And every slight sensation, down to the heat I felt from her shoulder pushed me closer to orgasm.

Then it was there. My ejaculate spurted inside her, and Sloth bounced even more energetically as she felt the hot fluid inside her. I called out in pleasure as the built up fluid from the past week's sexual tension and anticipation continued to pump into her. I didn't appreciate how much I'd needed that until that moment.

Sloth kept going for a few minutes after I was spent, eventually relaxing in my embrace as I laid back to enjoy the afterglow, my hands still caressing her back.

"We need to do this more often," I said.

"Tell me something," Sloth asked.

"Anything," I offered.

"Now don't take this the wrong way. You've made your feelings more than clear, and I'm not questioning if you're really attracted to me."

"That's good. I don't see how I could be more convincing than I've been. Not that I'm opposed to providing more evidence."

Sloth smiled with me, then continued. "When did those feelings start?"

"From the beginning. It all started when I was helping a scared little girl look for her lost dog. She was beautiful and loving and cleaver. How could I not fall in love?"

"That long, and you didn't say anything until I was standing in front of you naked?" she asked, skeptically.

"Just because I found her attractive didn't mean I believed Nina understood enough to consent to this kind of relationship. Besides, I actually thought that was a dream for a long time after.

"Anyway, later on, I ended up matching wits with a child-sized homonculus. She was smart, witty, a little arrogant, and got chances to show off how strong, fast, and flexible that little body could be. There was no doubt she could consent, but unfortunately, she was a murderous, manipulative psychopath, and that really killed off any attraction."

"So this hasn't all been about you living out your bad girl fantasy?" she snarked with a smile, letting me know she wasn't hurt or offended by my characterization of her old enforcer personality.

"Never understood that fantasy," I admitted. "It wasn't until Nina showed up in my prison cell, begging to know what had been happening to her that all the pieces came together. Nina's warmth and compassion, combined with Sloth's knowledge base and confidence, all wrapped up in the sexiest body I've ever seen and the only question left was if she'd want me."

"You're overdoing it on the flattery. I know you spent enough time in Aquroya to see Psiren."

"True. I've even seen under the mask, and worked with her on refining my bio-alchemy. What? You think she was prettier than you? I think I'm entitled to my own opinion on the matter. If you two swapped bodies, I'd still love you, but she'd be the more physically attractive one by a wide margin."

She blushed and seemed about to speak, then thought better of it and kissed me instead.

"So, how did this all seem from your prospective?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Sloth thought for a moment. "It's sort of hard to explain. I've got the memories of two different people getting to know you. I can't really put both lives on the same time scale, even though there obviously was an objective sequence of events that could be worked out."

"That's okay. Tell it however feels right to you."

"I'll start with Nina," she decided. "I figured out how my powers worked a few different times. Every time I showed them off to Daddy, he'd make me forget. We were living in Lab 5 at the time, and he was off working on his research. Even in my memories from the original Nina, I spent a lot of time alone. I figured out I could walk through walls again, and thought of a bunch of new games I could play with Alexander using this. Daddy'd said we had to move quickly and never said anything about where Alexander was.

"I decided to sneak out, go back to our old house, and find him. I saw you there, and hid, laughing at how much fun it was using my new powers to keep out of sight, walking through walls as you got close."

"You scared the crap out of me," I admitted. "My friends had been feeding me spooky stories about that house. We did a full search with guns drawn thinking there might be a rogue chimera in there."

"Sorry. I didn't think about how it might've looked at the time."

"So, you came back later. Did you remember the first trip?"

"I knew Daddy would be mad at me for sneaking out, so I didn't tell him about any of it. I went back later, and asked for your help looking for Alexander."  
"I'm sorry I encouraged you to go back to your father."

"You didn't know. I wouldn't have listened to you telling me to run away at the time anyway. I remember thinking you were nice, and that you made me feel safe. You didn't know what was going on, but you wanted me to be safe and happy. That matters.

"I saw you again in Lab 5. You were asleep on the floor. I was so happy you remembered me. When daddy said you'd be working with him, I thought that would mean we could see each other again, and maybe I could convince you to play with me.

"You mentioned Alexander, and I realized I'd been forgetting things. I drew a picture of you and hid it so I wouldn't worry daddy, and I'd have a reminder if I ever forgot you. Then I went through my other drawings and found ones of Alexander, and put those with it."

"I was the first memory you hid away? That does make me feel special."

"It's too bad I didn't get to draw you fighting a dangerous chimera to save my life, but I lost all memory of you and our meetings before I got to. After that, you were a mysterious face I'd drawn that had something to do with a white dog and my missing memories. I took a big risk going to see you when Daddy brought you in to that cell, but I'm glad I did."

"Even putting aside what would have happened to me if you hadn't, I'm glad you did too."

"Sloth's memories are a little clearer and less disjointed," she continued. "I'd been trying to push Karin into trying a human transmutation. The idea was that her failure to bring back Majahal would spur her to seek the power of a real philosopher stone. Meanwhile, Shao and I would take in the resulting homonculus and he'd program it into another agent. She was stubbornly sticking to soul attachment research because that was where Majahal left off. Then a nosy State Alchemist showed up to spoil all my hard work."

"For the record, I actually didn't suspect anything until I got knocked out."

"Be that as it may, you were aggravatingly cleaver and resourceful. You could have gotten away and warned the military if you hadn't stopped to save the dog. The bio-alchemy you used on Loki was impressive, and I realized you could be a lot more useful in making the Stone than Karin ever could be."

"You threw the fight," I realized.

"More like I didn't keep going when you got the upper hand. I was still pissed at you for ruining my plan, and really didn't see the earthquake and pit thing coming."  
"But a pit was never going to hold you."

"I hadn't used my powers to travel underground at that point. Once I worked it out, I could've gone to finish you off, but like I said, I realized I might get something useful out of the deal. I put another red stone with Karin's things to nudge you on to the path."

"So, I was a useful tool to her at that point."

"To be fair, that's the most positive feeling she had about anybody. I don't think she was made to be capable of more.

"The next time I saw you, I was trying to reproduce the success of the Ishbal massacre in producing a Stone. You'd been looking into Dante's lab, which was encouraging, but I had other angles I was working. When you drove me off with the Stone, I didn't throw that fight, though I was happy to see you taste the forbidden power."

"I think I see where your plans for me went wrong," I said. "Your plan was to push me into violating a taboo I didn't have in the first place. Since none of this was taboo for me, there was no downward spiral."

"You kept coming up with new tricks and tactics for fighting me, and every time I'd have to scramble to keep up. You pushed me to explore new ways of using my powers, and if it weren't for the repeated blows to my pride, I'd have been grateful for the push."

"It's nice to know I wasn't the only one scrambling to come up with new tricks."

"We heard through the Fuhrer what the Swarm Alchemist had reported about your human transmutation, and I was sent to pick up some insurance in case it was true. I made the doctor tell me where the leg was, then I killed him. All I felt while doing it was how priceless the look on your face would be when you realized I could kill you."

"We talked about this," I said as her voice started to get husky with held back tears. I hugged her tight and said, "You weren't in control of your thoughts or your actions. If she hadn't been the kind of person who would kill without a thought, Shao would have erased her and made someone who would."

"It's memories like that, killing people who were begging for their lives and enjoying it, that you tried to warn me about in that cell. There are moments I regret making you unlock those memories, moments I think you should have told me no. I get over those pretty quick when I remember that just not knowing doesn't mean it didn't happen."

"It's what you do now that you aren't under anyone's control that matters," I said with conviction.

"Once you unlocked the memories, I was reeling. Suddenly, I had both Nina's conscience, and memories of all Sloth's crimes at the same time. I was so guilty, and felt so ashamed of myself, but you were there holding me all the same. You knew what I'd done, if not all the specifics, and you continued to comfort me and act like I was something other than the inhuman monster I felt like. I didn't feel worthy."

"You had a lot to process," I said simply. "I was just relieved that with all your memories restored, you still cared about right and wrong."

"I remembered what was coming for you, and decided my problems could wait. After we escaped, I started thinking about my future, and where I would go from here."  
"That's when you noticed Wrath was growing and brought up your expected nonexistent sex life."

Sloth blushed. "It was about a normal life. I was starting to come to terms with the way my father was using me, and wasn't sure if I was even capable of being something other than the sum of the things he made me. You pushed back, and I decided I'd prove a point by propositioning you. I have never been happier to be proven wrong."

We didn't need sleep, but we chose it anyway, falling asleep in one another's arms until sunrise.

. . .

Author's Comments:  
A look back on the peculiar relationship Greed and Sloth have been building throughout this story.


	20. Izumi's Rebirth

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 20) Izumi's Rebirth  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Sloth and I spent the next two days making plans and drafting letters, hoping our preparations would be enough. At length, Mason, Sig, and Wrath arrived by boat, carrying Izumi's coin and several barrels of the red water components I'd ordered.

"The labs have been ready for a few days," I said, helping unload the chemicals.

"I am so looking forward to having my strength back," pouted Sloth as she tried to lift one of the containers.

"Is this everything you need?" asked Sig.

"Yeah, looks like it's all here," I confirmed.

"You can really make a philosopher's stone out of all this?" asked Mason.

"Not exactly, but something close enough to do the job," I corrected.

"Where do we take these?" asked Mason.

"Sloth, you bring Sig to the labs on the east side of the island. I'll show Mason where the labs on the west are. Remember, this stuff is incredibly toxic, so nothing gets opened until the humans are off the island."

"Does tat mean I stay here?" asked Wrath.

"Come with Mason and I. I'll explain the process we'll be using over the next few days."

"We?" came Izumi's voice. "You're the only alchemist on the island with a body."

"You don't need to be an alchemist to make red stones using this method. I've been looking forward to showing off the brilliance of Russel and Fletcher Tringam's work."

Wrath carried the coin very carefully as Mason and I hauled barrels of red water material. I let myself hope my plan had worked and they were on the path to reconciliation.

"These hatches lead to the labs I have set up," I said as I opened the first one we came across.

"Why are they underground?" asked Izumi.

"Like I said before, the material we're working with is toxic. It's one more layer of protection in case there's an accident."

"How likely is an accident?" asked Mason. "What happens if there is one?"

"Red water poisoning causes organ damage by accumulating heavy metals in the lungs and reproductive system. If you catch it soon enough, you can clear it out with alchemy before the damage is done, otherwise it can have permanent effects or lead to death."

"Tell them the rest," said Izumi coldly.

"This method doesn't rely on human sacrifice," I shot back. "The only way people get hurt using this method is if we fuck it up. Watch and I'll show you the whole process. No tricks."

Izumi fell silent as we entered the lab, and I went over the safety precautions for holding and mixing the red water.

"And this is the discovery that makes everything possible," I declared as I showed them the row of thick stalked, white petaled philosopher's flowers sitting in their planter under growth lights. "These plants take in the red water though their roots, and accumulate it inside themselves, crystallizing it into a solid mass that we can extract and use as an alchemic amplifier or as homonculus food."

"And that's all?" asked Izumi.

"That's all," I confirmed. "The plants themselves and the idea to use plants in the first place was a stroke of genius by Russel and Fletcher Tringam. If they're smart, the state will be funding their research by now."

"And using it to make weapons," added Izumi.

"The state already knows how to make stones using the human sacrifice method. This won't make them any more powerful," I countered.

"So, how long does the process take, on average?" asked Mason, preventing the argument from going further.

"It takes about three days before enough red water crystallizes into a stone. You can't use alchemy to accelerate the process. We'll be monitoring the levels on each plant, and making a large number at once. Ideally, enough to finish Izumi's new body, boost our strength and regeneration, and leave us with a few more to use as alchemic amplifiers."

. . .

Mason and Sig left the island, the later not without considerable hesitation at leaving Izumi alone with Wrath. Sloth, and I had little trouble finding privacy over the next few days as Wrath and Izumi eschewed the comforts of our cabin and instead chose to spend their time, when not monitoring the plants, talking privately in one of the labs.

Finally, the day arrived, and we reaped our first harvest of red stones. The care we provided the flowers saw hundreds of thumb sized stones produced. I monitored the harvest, coming along behind each and alchemically healing the ones Wrath cut open. Sloth simply phased the stones out, doing less damage, but still requiring some intervention on my part to secure the health of the plant.

The three of us each ate a few dozen stones, and saw our scabbed over injuries from the fight with the Gunslinger Alchemist disappear. The majority of the stones, I had set aside, since Izumi's new body would need to take human form by consuming some, and the exact amount needed wasn't a sure thing in my mind. Plus, there would be my need to regenerate whatever the Gate took.

We waited for Sig and Mason to arrive for their daily check-in, and informed them that we were ready. I led the group to a small clearing where I'd prepared the transmutation circle and laid out the materials.

"I'll want to be relatively isolated when I do this, so no one else is at risk from the Gate, but I wanted to make sure you all knew where this is happening, so if something goes wrong and I can't finish the job, someone else can."

"I thought you knew how to do this," said Sloth, alarmed.

"I've only done it once, and I almost died. I learned some lessons that I hope will make this safer, but I won't know for sure if they're enough until I try."

"Why do you have to try at all? Izumi's soul's already attached to the coin. Can't you just put her in a suit of armor?" she demanded.

"A suit of armor won't heal," I replied. "It's strength can't grow in proportion to red stones consumed. Besides, this isn't just about this battle."

"We still don't know why my limbs won't grow back," noted Wrath quietly.

"And we never will until I try this," I continued. "And I want to know. I want to know if this process can be made safe enough to use on a wide scale."

"An entire army of homonculi," noted Izumi.

"An entire nation," I countered. "An end to loss of life and limb, whether from accident or violence. Who could object to that?"

"How many people took you up on your offer so far?" asked Izumi. "I'm only involved because I can't fight back."

"I saw an entire city of people held captive with nothing more than a false promise of something not half as good as this."

"Can we get back to the part about you dying from this plan?" interrupted Sloth.

"We know that the Gate takes things from alchemists who attempt human transmutation. Edward Elric lost an arm and a leg to the Gate. Izumi had internal organs taken. I had my heart ripped out. I'm hoping that as a homonculus, I'll be able to just regenerate whatever gets torn off me."

"I don't want to risk losing you," said Sloth pleadingly.

"And that's why I have to do it," I replied. "No one wants to risk losing their loved ones, and if there's a chance that no one will ever have to again, how could I live with myself making the choice to not take it?"

"You're not a god," said Izumi. "You can't control the cycle of life and death, and you certainly aren't responsible for letting it continue. Trying to be responsible for that will just create more suffering."

"There's one more reason I have to do this," I said. "When the Gate opens, all the knowledge of the universe pours through you. Someone less jaded on religion might describe it as touching the mind of God. No one told me about that part when I was studying human alchemy. So, more selfishly, I want to see it again."

I took Izumi's coin and placed it on a nearby rock, then kneeled in front of the transmutation circle. The others took the hint and headed off, with Sloth coming over to me. She kissed me on the cheek, said, "Be safe," and followed the others.

Once everyone was out of sight, I placed my hands on the array and circulated the energy. Blue light poured from the transmutation circle, and I braced myself for what was coming next. For the second time, I found myself at the Gate. I allowed myself to spare a thought to how many alchemists Dante must have sacrificed to get enough information to reproduce it in sculpture.

The Gate swung open, and I was confronted by the teeming multitudes of amorphous, violet eyed children made of darkness and shadow that served to extract the alchemist's toll for coming here and seeing beyond. I kept my eyes open wide as they reached out, determined not to miss a single image. As before, a small infinity of knowledge forced its way into my mind, and I struggled to hold on to as much as I could.

I felt my left arm torn from my body, but I didn't bother to look. I'd seen the answer to my question alongside the answers to a thousand others I didn't think to ask. My limbs would regenerate. Wrath's didn't because in replacing them with human limbs, he'd forsaken his ability to regenerate them. My left leg broke down as well, and I regenerated them both as I tried to keep my mind focused on the knowledge pouring through me.

Finally, the hands withdrew, the Gate closed, and the experience ended. I was back in the clearing staring at the misshapen homonculus I'd created. It struggled to breathe as I searched through the pile of tissue to find the oroboros mark. Then, I clapped my hands, and placed one hand on the oroboros and the other on Izumi's coin. "This next part is going to hurt," I cautioned, then released the energy of the transmutation, shifting Izumi's soul from the coin to the homonculus, accompanied by a surge of blue light.

The strangled gasps of the homonculus grew more urgent, and I rushed to where I'd left a basket of red stones. Finding the homonculus' mouth, I started feeding it red stones as fast as it could eat them.

It was less than ten minutes before Izumi's body had taken form, a black outfit mimicking her standard form of dress, complete with midriff-bearing closed vest. The oroboros mark had migrated to the center of her stomach, with her navel in the center.

With the basket of red stones empty, and her breathing finally steadied after eating so quickly, Izumi got to her feet and walked to where I was tying the newly transmuted boot I'd produced to replace the one that had been on the foot that the Gate took.

"Are you feeling better?" I asked.

In response, she grabbed an arm and threw me over her shoulder hard into a tree. I felt my neck snap, and my head went at an odd angle.

"Get up!" yelled Izumi. "It takes more than that to kill a homonculus, so don't think you can avoid the consequences of your actions by playing dead!"

My neck had already healed, and I clapped my hands, hoping to defend myself using alchemy. In response, Izumi grabbed one of my arms and broke it while stomping down on my face, breaking my nose.

"You think just because you have the power to do something that you have the right! Wrong!" She continued to yell as she grabbed me by the leg and spun me in a wide circle before cracking open my skull against a tree trunk.

My regeneration was keeping pace with the injuries she was inflicting, but just barely. I tried to get to my feet, and was doubled over by a hard kick to the stomach.

"Stop!" rang out Sloth's voice. The others had apparently heard Izumi's shouting.

"You crossed a line, using human alchemy on someone who didn't want to come back," Izumi spat at me as I finally got the arrays on my shoes in proper contact with the ground. I transmuted a pit beneath myself, hoping to get some breathing room, but Izumi caught me by the throat before I could fall into it.

Sloth covered the distance in a blink as I struggled against the woman's vice-like grip. Grabbing my ankle, Sloth won the tug of war by the simple expedient of phasing me through Izumi's hand. With her superhuman strength restored by the red stones, Sloth quickly hauled me behind her and faced down Izumi protectively.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded Sloth with a righteous anger I'd never seen from her before.

"This may come as a surprise," said Izumi, "but this isn't about you. Step aside."

Sloth didn't finch from Izumi's icy glare. "You don't get to hurt people I care about and claim it doesn't effect me. I repeat. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I kept an eye on Izumi from behind Sloth, waiting for any sign she was about to use alchemy, and quietly prepared to counter it if it came.

"He needs to justify HIS choice to take someone unwilling and turn them into a homonculus. He's the only one who made that choice, so he's the one who needs ot face the consequences. Now step aside."

Izumi clapped, and went to touch the ground. I didn't need to know what she was planning. I just used the arrays on my shoes that were already in contact with the ground to subtly alter the soil composition and disrupt her transmutation.

"You'd best start beating the crap out of me too," said Sloth, grabbing Izumi's vest to demonstrate that she was currently tangible, "because I was on board with that decision."

"Agreeing doesn't make you responsible," responded Izumi.

"No," said Sloth with a hard edge. "It makes me a hell of a lot more responsible for this than just about anything else in my life."

"Sloth," I said, reaching out a comforting hand.

She shook it off. "I'm okay. Just taking responsibility for the choices I've made now that I'm free." She spared me a smile over her shoulder before resuming her stare at Izumi. "He could have walked away at any time. It's not like it's hard to disappear. He's only involved because he chose to help people. Your son. Me. And all the people my father endangers with his pursuit or possession of the philosopher's stone. I was the one who pushed him, saying we needed help, that we couldn't do this on our own."

The two stared at one another, each waring a look of righteous determination. Izumi was the first to blink.

"So, what's the plan?" she said after sighing with resignation.

The others relaxed and approached at that point, sensing that the storm had passed. Only Wrath stayed back.

I got to my feet and said, "First, I'd like an apology."

The others stopped their relaxed approach, and one of Izumi's eyebrows started to twitch.

I pressed on. "Now, you've got every right to be mad at me. I may not share your opinion on the nobility of accepting the natural order of things, but I don't like ignoring people's wishes in general."

"Then what-?" started Izumi, more confused than angry.

"I'd like you to apologize for scaring Wrath. He deserved better than to have to deal with his mo- with your violent outbursts."

The half-finished word got through more effectively than anything I'd intentionally said. Wrath tolerated our calling him Izumi's son, but reacted badly to her being called his mother, and that clearly hurt the woman. Izumi turned toward Wrath, who flinched at her gaze.

"He's right," she said, sadly. "It seems like I'll never run out of things to apologize to you for."

Wrath hesitantly approached, and Sloth patted Izumi's forearm in a comforting gesture. "At least you care enough to try."

. . .

I led the group back to the cabin Sloth and I had been using, and gathered everyone around a table.

"Okay, you've all been very patient with the preparations so far. I hope I've managed to answer any questions you've had about what we've just done. Now we get to pick up where we left off when I first arrived. With me begging for your help."

"The world didn't end while you were waiting for me to get back on my feet," noted Izumi.

"It's a weak stone," Wrath spoke up. "Almost as used up as Dante's was. Once it runs out, he'll get back to tricking someone into making a new one."

"I don't get why those crazy alchemists don't just make the stone themselves if they know how," said Mason.

"Shao claimed he didn't have the power to pull off the transmutation," I provided.

"That was a lie," said Izumi. "Dante was one of the strongest alchemists I've ever known, and she still wasn't up to making a stone herself."

"The process is fatal," said Sloth, drawing every eye in the room, including mine. "My father learned a lot of the background from the last batch of homonculi and their master. Hohenheim died making the first Philosopher's stone. Dante saved him with a soul attachment, but the transmutation did kill him. The Ishbalan Scar died making his stone as well. Dante couldn't make a stone on her own, because there was no alchemist she could trust to perform the soul attachment on her after she died making a stone. My father continued to try to trick other alchemists into performing the transmutation for the same reason Dante pursued that method."

"I'm vaguely curious if we could survive it," I admitted with a glance at Izumi. "Not curious enough to overlook the other costs involved, obviously."

"Remember, my father was preparing to duplicate your research when we escaped. If we don't stop him, we might find out."

"Okay, I'm sold," said Izumi. "I presume you have a plan."

I handed a stack of letters to Mason. "I need these mailed out. The timing is important, so just follow the instructions on the top page."

"Got it," he said, accepting the bundle.

"Sig, I need you to hide Izumi's remains. If Shao can get his hands on them, that's a weapon he can use against us."

"No one knows I'm with you," noted Izumi.

"Better over prepared than under prepared," I shrugged.

"Some of the letters are to draw what we hope will be potential allies here," continued Sloth. "One is designed to lure my father so we can fight this out on our battlefield rather than his."

. . .

The following few days were a bustle of activity as we prepared traps, traded information, and rehearsed tactics. Izumi claimed the title of Lust as a show of solidarity with us. Izumi spent as much time as she could with Wrath, and Sig stayed nearby, ready to occupy Izumi's time and attention when Wrath inevitably closed off and pulled away, only to tentatively approach another time when he felt safe. For his part, Sig seemed to be trying to stay out of the way and give Wrath the chance to sort things out with Izumi, though it was plain to everyone how relieved and grateful he was to see Izumi's strength restored to her.

Given the short timetable we were working on, Sloth and I took advantage of the fact that we didn't need sleep and pushed to complete our preparations, mutually agreeing that we'd put our newly restored superhuman stamina to the test after we were sure we would be as ready as we could be for Shao's arrival. The evening before the conflict, we finally got our chance.

Sloth, Lust, Wrath, Sig, Mason, and I were gathered around the dining room table of the cabin I'd transmuted. We homonculi had bowls of red stones in front of us, while the two humans were dining on roasted rabbits caught that morning.

"I still feel like kind of a fifth wheel here," said Mason.

"We never would have finished the preparations in time if we'd also had to handle things in town," I assured him.

"Well, maybe we could have," noted Lust, "but then Sig and I wouldn't have had any time to ourselves."

"So, do you really think you're ready?" asked Mason more seriously.

"Of course not," I said. "We're going up against a deranged former State Alchemist with a philosopher stone. We're as ready as we're going to be, but there's only so much we can do."

"I could help," offered Sig.

"No," replied Lust gently. "Watch over the remains while Mason keeps cover at the shop."

"It'll be easier if we don't have to worry about keeping the battlefield in a state humans can survive," I added.

"Just everyone remember, killing is our last resort," reminded Sloth. "We want to disarm and capture him.

"Of course," I agreed. "But if he is a homonculus now, capturing him still might require force that would kill human bystanders."

"We're supposed to fight tomorrow, right?" asked Wrath, rhetorically. "Then arguing now is stupid. We all agreed to this plan."

Lust wrapped her arms around Wrath in an affectionate embrace, and said, "I wish I'd been involved enough in your life that I could take credit for the wise young man you've become."

For his part, Wrath froze. His eyes darted looking for escape, but he didn't lash out to free himself as he would have done not long ago. It was subtle, but the gap between them was finally starting to close.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Wrath and Izumi getting a chance to reconcile was one of the big things I wanted to include in this fic. I didn't buy that they'd come close enough for the scene in Conquorer of Shambala to make sense.


	21. Romantic Interlude 4

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 21) Romantic Interlude 4  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 22.  
***WARNING***

. . .

Sloth and I excused ourselves and withdrew to our bedroom. As we left, we could make out the conversation shift from the coming battle, toward the swapping of family stories. Sad as it was that our presence had been keeping their minds on the upcoming confrontation, I couldn't help but smile at the warmth and affection for one another exuding from Lust, Sig and Mason's voices as they tried to entice Wrath to join in.

"You're thinking Mason wasn't the fifth wheel down there," offered Sloth as we closed the door and shut out the sounds from the dining room.

"I thought your power was being intangible, not mind reading," I teased. "Yeah, hard not to notice how much more at ease they are when we leave."

"They've known each other for a long time. We were always there to help Wrath relax around them."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it worked. I'm happy for Wrath, finally feeling safe enough around him that he doesn't need us, but..." I trailed off looking for the right words.

"But you're lonely," she finished for me.

"Lonely... maybe. Between losing Loki and what happened with Frank, Melvin, and Ken, I do have less people in my life than I've gotten used to."

"I know the feeling," she said sympathetically. "It's one the original Nina felt a lot before she died."

"Thanks for understanding," I acknowledged.

"I'm sure part of it is also feeling a bit unappreciated," she added with a smirk. "We've been pushing ourselves to give them the time they need to bond and reconnect, and not one word of acknowledgement of the sacrifices we've made for their sakes."

I laughed. "That's true. And I know you've been looking forward to seeing what our bodies can do now that we've got red stones in us as much as I have."

We were both naked in the time it took me to kick off my shoes. I swept Sloth up in my arms and carried her toward our bed, with our lips pressed together, and our tongues exploring one another. I savored the kiss, probing her mouth with my tongue and sucking on her tongue when our lips were sealed just right. We didn't need to breathe, so we didn't, both of us refusing to break the kiss until the urgency of our other sexual drives managed to outweigh the pleasure and intimacy we were currently experiencing.

I was the first to give in, needing my tongue for other things. Sloth didn't give it up without a fight, continuing to suck hard on my tongue even as I pulled it slowly out of her mouth. She let out a lustful moan as I finally pulled away, and I responded with a satisfied, "hm," as I enjoyed the taste of her saliva still in my mouth.

I laid Sloth down on the bed and started teasing at one of her nipples with the tip of my tongue. Sloth's lips unconsciously pursed, seeking something as I backed away to admire my handiwork, comparing the nearly invisible nipple I hadn't touched yet to the erect one I'd been playing with. I kissed Sloth's seeking lips again, then provided her with a finger to suck on while I started to grope her beautiful flat chest with my other hand. I felt her relaxed nipple harden under my touch as I started sucking on the one I'd already teased.

I started to run my free hand down her naked body, rubbing her flat stomach as I switched nipples and began sucking on the other one. When my hand reached her smooth, hairless pubic mound, a small hand was already there.

Pausing in her finger sucking, Sloth let out a pleased gasp and took the hand she had been touching herself with, and used it to guide my hand into place.

"Let's have a taste of those fingers," I asked, and Sloth brought the hand she'd been masturbating with up to my mouth, then got back to sucking on my finger.

I licked her fingertips as I methodically explored her outer labia with my own. I pressed two fingers against her clit and felt her squeeze her legs together, holding my hand in place.

After sucking gently on each of her fingers, I pulled my hand away from her mouth and held her hand with it as I continued to rub er clit with my pinned hand. I bent down to place my lips over hers, pausing to let her let out a moan of pleasure, then I kissed her hungrily.

We held hands and sucked on one another's tongues as I continued to masturbate her. I didn't have enough freedom of movement to insert a finger inside her vagina, but from the way her hips shifted and how she had trouble focusing on what to do with her tongue, I got the distinct impression she was enjoying herself.

After a few minutes, Sloth's body stiffened, and the continuously gathering lubricating moisture from her vagina was no longer the only liquid coating my fingers. I kept rubbing and kissing her through her orgasm, keeping it going for longer than I'd ever seen her go. I was almost disappointed when her body relaxed, and her kisses became gentle and affectionate.

I pulled away, enjoying the satisfying twitch I elicited from her as my hand left her crotch. Keeping the fingers of our other hands interlocked, I licked her juices off my fingers as we smiled at one another.

"You up for something new?" I asked, eager to continue.

"What did you have in mind?" asked Sloth breathlessly/ Her smile was encouraging.

"I've been thinking, I haven't been giving your butt the attention it deserves."

She giggled at my words, then turned herself over on to her stomach, raising her posterior slightly and craning her neck to see what I was doing.

"No point straining yourself," I said as I caught what she was doing. I clapped my hands and reached over her, touching the wall the bed was set against. Blue sparks passed over a rectangular section, and by the time they vanished, a mirror graced the wall, allowing her a clear view without straining her neck.

We looked each other in the eye through the mirror for a moment, and smiled, then I turned my attention to her presented butt. I leaned down and kissed the smooth skin of one of her butt cheeks, then placed on hand on each of her round buttocks and ran my hands over them, taking in their shape. I kneaded her butt cheeks for a few minutes, before touching the tip of my penis to the bottom of her butt crack.

Sloth was surprised at the touch, but made no move to protest as I ran the head of my erect penis up to the small of her back and back down. Griping her butt cheeks with both hands, I spread them slightly, and inserted my penis between. The tip of my penis touched her anus, and Sloth tensed.

"Not just yet," I assured her. "For now, I've got something else in mind."

She relaxed as the tip of my penis moved past her anus as I positioned most of the shaft of my penis between her butt cheeks, the head peaking out at the small of her back. I began to slide back and forth as I ran my gaze up and down her gorgeous back. Sloth made a satisfied humming sound as I went.

It didn't take long before the sexual tension reached its peak, and I ejaculated, the pressure propelling my semen all the way to the nape of he neck, with more distributed across the length of her back, mostly concentrated along her spine. Seeing the ribbons of sticky white fluid splattering along her back only increased my enjoyment of the experience, and prolonged my orgasm. I felt my reserves starting to deplete, but with less energy than it took to regenerate a paper cut, I was pleased to note I could top off my supply of semen mid-climax and prolong the experience virtually indefinitely.

After emptying two full loads of semen across Sloth's naked back, I let the orgasm run its course, and withdrew my flaccid penis. Sloth adjusted her position to get a better look at the distribution of cum on the mirror, then smiled.

"I hope you didn't just waste everything you had on the outside," she said. "I still want to swallow at least that much tonight."

"Looks like I should be able to oblige," I replied as I shifted my position, leaning my back against the mirror and spreading my legs for her.

Sloth crawled on hands and knees into position, careful not to disturb the pattern of ejaculate on her back as she went. She smiled hungrily when she got into position, and using one hand, stuffed my entire flaccid penis in her warm, eager mouth.

I felt a pit of pain from that kind of stimulation starting to cause a new erection during the refractory period, but another tiny portion of regeneration energy vanquished that pain and left me fresh for another round.

Sloth couldn't fit my entire penis in her mouth for long, but she was determined to take advantage of it while she could. There was a light suction to keep everything in her mouth, but her main focus was on adjusting the way the shaft set in her mouth with her tongue. She held as much of it as she could in her mouth as long as she could, even as my growing erection caused the tip to press against the back of her throat. She gagged a bit, but didn't let that stop her from trying. It was ultimately a futile effort. Her mouth was barely big enough to contain the entire head of my penis while erect, but we both appreciated the effort.

When she started using her hands to stroke the shaft as she continued to run her tongue over the head in her mouth, I leaned back and relaxed, content to appreciate the moment. My eyes wandered across her back, and I idly picked up one of Sloth's dangling braids as she continued to enthusiastically suck on my penis. Using the end of her braid like a brush, I dipped it in a ribbon of still wet semen on her back, and brushed it over her oroboros mark, which I'd somehow managed to miss.

That minor aesthetic issue corrected, I settled in to enjoy the increasing suction Sloth was applying with her mouth, and the increasing frequency of the pumps she was doing with her hands.

My favorite part about ejaculating in Sloth's mouth was the way her tongue moved across the head of my penis as she swallowed in time with each spurt of semen. This time, she was more ready for it when I started to cum. She still took a moment to switch gears, and a little of my cum escaped from her lips to dribble down her chin before she was happily swallowing in time with my orgasm. She continued to pump my penis with her hands as she greedily swallowed every drop she could extract, and I didn't want it to stop.

For a full minute, I kept using my regeneration to stay topped off, and Sloth kept drinking as much as I was willing to give her. Eventually, she stopped swallowing as she continued to tease my penis with her tongue and pump with her hands. Her mouth filled in seconds, ejaculate bursting out from between her lips under pressure. She pulled my still cumming penis out of her very full mouth, and continued stroking it with one hand as she tried to keep it pointed at her wide open mouth with the other. She wasn't very successful, and I let myself run out of cum ejaculating all over her face.

"You have never looked more beautiful," I told her emphatically as she was squeezing the last drops of semen out of my flaccid penis into a waiting palm.

She rubbed the result across her flat chest, creating a glistening streak and started to try to speak. All that came out where bubbles and gurgling noises as she tried to talk around the mouthful of ejaculate she wasn't able to swallow and wasn't willing to spit out. While the words may not have made it through, the tone and her semen crusted smile were clear enough.

"My turn," I said, taking her by the hips and rolling Sloth on to her back. She spread her legs open as I brought my head down to her crotch. She was very wet.

I ran my tongue along her inner thighs, tasting the juices that had accumulated there thus far. I moved up to her spread labia and sealed my lips around her clitoris, sucking and teasing with my tongue for a few moments, before backing off and starting to probe the inside of her vagina with my tongue.

With each action, Sloth shifted her hips, trying to guide me to where she wanted to be pleasured. As I licked, I ran my hands up and down her legs, from her knees around her thighs to cup her butt cheeks and back again. I hummed with pleasure when the gradual shifts of her position gave way to her bucking and humping my face with unashamed passion. I flicked my eyes up as I continued to alternate between teasing her clit and exploring the inner walls of her vagina with my tongue, to take in the beauty of the young girl, with her head thrown back in ecstasy and her entire body responding to my touch.

Sloth grabbed the back of my head and pressed hard in time with the thrusts of her hips. In response, I adjusted my tongue work to bring it in time with the pace she set. Unable to keep using my hands, I instead gripped her butt firmly and used it to keep my position somewhat stable without dampening Sloth's enthusiasm.

She let out small cries of pleasure, the cum in her mouth allowed to dribble out the sides and down her chin as she lost track of her original plan in the grips of her building orgasm. Seeing the signs, I made sure my tongue was as deep inside her as I could manage, and my lips covering her labia when it came.

I adored the contractions of her tight vagina around my tongue, and caught as much of the ejaculate that squirted out of her as I could in my mouth. My tongue otherwise occupied, swallowing wasn't an option, so I contented myself with filling my mouth and letting the remainder run down my chin. She was humping in time with the contractions of her orgasm, and showed no signs of tiring or being spent. My jaw would have been sore and my tongue cramped long before she was halfway through were it not for my regeneration. I took full advantage and helped prolong the child's orgasm as long as I could.

Eventually, she let herself succumb to exhaustion, and lay on the bed, limp and satisfied. I crawled up to look her in the eye, and she smiled when I arrived, the cum in her bangs was starting to dry, and her left eye was plastered shut.

"Let me fill up your vagina," I asked. In an instant, her breathing steadied and all fatigue left her limbs.

"I was hoping you'd be up for that," she smiled as she reached down and grabbed my erect penis, guiding it toward her while spreading her labia with her other hand.

Getting the head of my penis inside her took just as much force as it had our first time. Additional experience let us keep focused and staved off any worry that we wouldn't be able to physically manage penetration, so instead, I took my time and enjoyed this pleasant side effect of Sloth's regeneration. Since I knew what I was dealing with, getting the head of my penis all the way in wasn't the relief it had been our first time, but that fact made it no less enjoyable.

With enough of my penis inside her that I wouldn't need to focus so much on keeping my approach straight, I wrapped my arms around her tiny body and pulled her against me. Sloth hugged me back, and the sticky mess that was all over her body only further fueled my erection.

After a few awkward attempts, Sloth and I managed to synchronize the timing of our hip thrusts in our mutual drive to see her penetrated as deep as possible as soon as possible. Half an inch at a time, I squeezed my erect penis inside the tight, virginal vagina of a small child. Finally, I reached the limit as I bumped the tip of my penis against her cervix, prompting a surprised gasp from my lover.

"Promise you'll cum inside me," she demanded, requiring visible effort to form words at this point.

"I was planning on it," I replied with only a little less effort.

"Then put it all the way in for now," she said.

At that point, her cervix seemed to disappear, and with one firm thrust of her hips, the tip of my penis seemed to have entered some sort of open cavity. She was using her powers to let my penis pass through her.

"Are you going to be able to keep focused enough for this?" I asked, unpleasant risks of this springing to my mind even as I couldn't help but notice the sensation of part of my erection that had never fit before now being squeezed in ways I'd never thought it would be.

"Unless you start changing composition on me," said Sloth, grinning broadly as she showed off her new trick, which she must've been thinking about for a while, "I can keep it together through a lot. Don't worry. You won't get your dick chopped off when I orgasm. Just remember to pull it back a little when you're ready to cum. I want that inside me, not passing through me."

I couldn't ask for better terms, and wasted no time making sure the entire length of my penis got to experience her tight vagina. She let out a small yelp of surprise when she felt my testicles pressing up against her, and I reflexively flinched, but true to her word, she didn't have any trouble focusing enough to keep her powers going.

I pulled my penis in and out, never leaving any part of her vagina unfilled, but finding that left plenty of room to maneuver. Sloth's orgasm started mid thrust as I felt the very base of m penis squeezed by her vaginal contractions. Her orgasm squeezing a completely new part of my penis pushed me to the edge, and I knew I'd be cumming any second. I pulled back hard, catching with each contraction of her climax even as I went past getting it all the way back into her vagina, and ended up halfway pulled out besides.

I loved the feeling of her orgasm compressing the head of my penis, and I felt the first spurts of my ejaculation. She clearly felt it, because when I thrusted as deep as I could mid-orgasm, I found myself once again bumping up against her cervix. Both of us prolonged our orgasms considerably as we humped and shifted as much as we had the muscle control to do.

"Don't stop," Sloth gasped. "Don't stop coming. Full me all the way up!"

I didn't have the muscle control to do much groping mid-orgasm, so I just held her tight as we both pushed ourselves well past the limits of human endurance. As my semen continued to pour into her, I eventually started to feel back-pressure. Her tiny body could only hold so much, and she was reaching her limit. Her tight vagina barely accommodated m penis, so there was no way the pressurized fluid would be escaping around it.

I made a decision, and broke our embrace, sitting upright as I continued to spurt more into her already overfull uterus. From my new position, I could swear I detected a slight bulge in her abdomen. Timing it as best I could, I pulled my penis out of her and released my remaining ejaculate over her chest and stomach. Meanwhile, with my penis no longer plugging her vagina, pressurized semen burst out of her, first in a single wave of released pressure, then in time with the vaginal contractions of her orgasm, then finally as a slow dribble when she relaxed and splayed herself out on the bed, spent and satisfied.

I lay down at her side and snuggled up to her. She in turn, sluggishly nuzzled against me.

"Now that's what I've been waiting for," she sighed contentedly.

"This is what I've been missing more," I countered and held her.

Sleep being optional, we just laid there holding each other until daybreak.

. . .

Author's comments:  
With the battle the next day, Sloth and Greed took full advantage of what may be their last night together.


	22. The Fate of the Philosopher's Stone

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 22) The Fate of the Philosopher's Stone  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

At sunrise, Sloth and I cleaned up and went outside to meet the others. Sig and Lust came out with their fingers intertwined, and Wrath followed them out, bouncing with pent up energy.

"Today's the day we get the Stone," he said excitedly.

"Just take care of yourselves and stay safe," advised Mason as he emerged from the cabin and took his place alongside Sig.

"You too, Mason," I replied, extending a hand out to him.

"Thank you for giving them more time," he replied sincerely as he took my hand and shook it.

"Remember," said Sloth as Sig and Mason boarded their boat, "the plan is to lure my father to the island, but there's no guarantee it'll work. Don't take any chances."

Izumi hugged Sig goodbye, then went to stand with Wrath to watch the boat depart.

I tossed everyone a small pouch of red stones in case things went wrong, and we all departed for different corners of the island to keep watch. At each camouflaged observation point, we'd placed a small radio. The first one of us to spot Shao was to let the rest know it was show time.

. . .

The first sign was a massive wake cutting through the water around the island. We all took positions. Wrath and Izumi hid, waiting for an opening, while Sloth and I waited in the open. Sloth was in her blue eyed, brown haired, human form, and I'd transmuted her a facsimile of the outfit she'd been wearing during our escape, though slightly more worn and dirty.

As the wake approached the beach, I was able to make out the details of the creature causing it. An enormous sea serpent, some sixty feet long at least, with aqua blue scales was swimming in our direction. Its eyes were set forward in its skull, and it had the sharp teeth of a predator. Atop its head stood a human figure. Dressed in black, with thinning black hair and a slight slouch, I knew I was looking at Shao Tucker. His oroboros mark appeared in the exact center of his forehead.

The chimera he rode in stopped at the shoreline and bowed its head until it was low enough for Shao to comfortably step off. I stepped out onto the beach roughly dragging Sloth along by her upper arm.

"I got your letter," said Shao, producing an envelope from an inner pocket of his jacket. I'd never heard his voice undistorted by the strain his old chimera body had put on his vocal cords. He was calm, seemingly unconcerned that I was holding his daughter hostage.

"Daddy!" Sloth called out in her best Nina impersonation, and put up a show of trying to break free from my grip.

"It's all right, Nina," he said in a tone that sounded sincere. "Daddy's here. Everything's going to be all right."

I wavered for a moment. Damn he was putting up a good act. I forced myself to remember what he'd done to Sloth and to the original Nina before her. "Did you bring the Stone?" I demanded, my voice dripping with genuine contempt.

"You don't really expect me to hand it over. If you ever had any such illusions, my chimera made it quite clear before I arrived."

"Interesting creature," I commented. "What do you feed something that big? It seems like such a creature would starve to death pretty quickly. I doubt there are enough fish in this lake to cover one meal for it."

"It hardly needs to last very long. You'll be dealt with long before that becomes an issue."

"So, it's just a tool to you," I concluded. "It can starve to death in agony for all you care as long as it gets you what you want."

"I can assure you, despite the work I'm famous for, the chimera isn't capable of understanding human speech. You won't be able to turn it against me with words."

"Are you even capable of proper empathy, or is everything you do about how it can advantage you?"

"I hardly think you're in a position to claim the moral high ground when you're holding my daughter hostage." It was said without anger, and just a hint of amusement at the irony.

"Hand over the stone and she goes free," I said, trying to get back on track.

"Nina, this next part might hurt. Be brave," he said, then whistled.

The sea serpent struck far faster than I would have expected from something its size. Reacting on instinct rather than any sort of rational plan, I let go of Sloth's arm and caught the serpent's jaws, keeping them from snapping shut and stopping its momentum dead through raw physical strength.

"Are you insane?" I demanded as I held off the chimera. "Nina could get hurt! Call it off!"

"I can repair any damage when this is all done."

"What?!" Sloth demanded, breaking character. Her eyes flashed to her slitted violet, and her hair turned black as she launched herself at Shao in a fury. Sloth closed the distance in the blink of an eye and leapt into the air, connecting a punch containing all that momentum with Shao's jaw.

Seeing we were in trouble, Wrath ran to aid me against the chimera, wrapping his arms around its neck and twisting. The chimera's head severed in a single motion. Wrath was scarily good at this with enough red stones in him.

Lust clapped and transmuted a row of stone spikes behind Shao in an effort to drive him inland and cut off his escape. Shao staggered back from Sloth's punch, but was forced to rush forward when the spikes rose up.

"Your monster's dead, you're outnumbered, and outmatched. Hand over the Stone," I demanded.

Shao reached into a pocket with his right hand, then pointed his left palm at Sloth. A wave of red alchemic light lashed out at Sloth. Her skin started breaking down and she screamed in agony as she scrambled backward and away from Shao.

"I don't know exactly how you turned her against me, but wiping her identity and starting from scratch should set things right," said Shao while I cradled Sloth while she regenerated. "As to the chimera, I can always make more."

With that, the Sewing Life Alchemist slapped his palm on the ground. Red light poured out of small cracks in the earth all across the island. Hundreds of insectoid chimeras burst out of the ground. They were the size of dogs and looked like over-muscled black ants.

"Are you okay?" I asked Sloth.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go."

With that, the four of us leapt only to land back to back in a defensive posture, and faced down the ants. Lust and I were on opposite sides of our defensive ring. She clapped, I stomped, and two rows of stone spikes impaled dozens of the chimeras, accompanied by the blue sparks of our transmutation.

Wrath and Sloth protected our flanks. Wrath punched messily through the armored exoskeleton of the first to get close, and pulled back a hand covered in gooey bits of insect brain matter. Sloth's swings were wilder and less focused, but whenever she touched the creatures, she phased partway through them and they were suddenly just missing those parts.

Breaking a hole in the ranks of the chimeras, we fled inland, with the Sewing Life Alchemist's chimeras in pursuit. Shao himself followed more cautiously. Keeping the battle in view, he stayed well outside the reach of either the chimeras or ourselves. Fortunately, he was so focused on us, he didn't realize we'd lured him into a trap.

Wrath interlaced his fingers, and I stepped on, while Lust and Sloth continued to hold off the chimeras. Wrath launched me through the air to land slightly behind Shao, cutting off his ability to escape out to sea. More importantly, I landed close enough to activate the transmutation circle we'd prepared and hidden beneath some leaves.

Blue light poured from the array as Shao doubled over and began vomiting up red stones. I allowed myself a smirk as it looked like we'd won. I underestimated the power of the Stone. Shao could barely move, but his hand was still on the Philosopher's Stone. Pressing his hand against the ground, the flamel array that sealed him split in two. The twin circles glowing red slid beneath my feet and the feet of my companions.

The chimeras began to rip chunks of flesh off Sloth, Lust, and Wrath as they regurgitated the red stones that would allow them to regenerate those injuries. I watched, helpless to aid them as the array sealing me forced me ot puke up my own stones.

A loud gunshot rang out, and Shao Tucker's head disappeared. The red light weaning us vanished, and I reflexively turned to see where the shot had come from. I saw a man in a blue military uniform, wearing a wide brimmed hat and holding an oversized revolver who'd just broken the tree line.

Shao had regenerated his head by the time I turned back, but my companions had fewer red stones left after the ordeal, and weren't regenerating as the chimeras continued to rip them apart.

I nodded my thanks to the Gunslinger Alchemist and ran to assist my fellow homonculi. My strength was back down to human levels, but I had a few tricks left. I grabbed a red stone out of my pocket and brandished it at the chimeras immediately around my companions. The Philosopher Stone may have been patching over the holes in his knowledge and skill, but I'd studied the Sewing Life Alchemist's style of chimera creation. I knew exactly what structure and composition these things had, so I let lose a wave of red stone enhanced alchemic energy, and the chimeras were deconstructed into dust amid a spiraling blue vortex of alchemic light.

Shao ignored my efforts to focus on the new threat. The Gunslinger Alchemist was soon joined by my old friends Frank, Melvin, and Ken. The thee of them constituted a heavy machine-gun crew, and set up the weapon with practiced speed and efficiency. In seconds, they were ready to gun down any of the ant chimeras threatening to advance on the State Alchemist they were supporting.

Shao withdrew the stone from his pocket and held it aloft. Red light poured over the area, and a dozen birds ranging from seagulls to pidgeons grew to the size of large horses, shed their features, grew sharper beaks and larger claws, and launched themselves at the Gunslinger Alchemist.

I reached the mutilated bodies of my fellow homonculi and cradled Sloth's head in my arms as I forced red stones from my pocket into her mouth.

"Shao Tucker, formerly the Sewing Life Alchemist." The even voice sent an involuntary chill down my spine. The Swarm Alchemist stepped into view. "The state military lawfully ordered your execution six years ago for the crime of human transmutation."

The Gunslinger Alchemist shot down the flying chimeras while the machine-gun crew held off the insectoid ones. Meanwhile, both groups were ignoring me as Sloth and I set to work feeding red stones to Wrath and Lust. The Swarm Alchemist adjusted neither his tone nor his volume in deference to the ongoing battle as he continued to address Shao.

"That you have evaded your sentence this long is irrelevant. It will be carried out today."

With that, the insectoid chimeras reversed course, allowing Frank, Melvin, and Ken to redirect their gunfire to the attacking birds. Shao whistled, clearly trying to regain control of his giant ants, but to no avail.

"Chimeras or no," I called out as I ran to rejoin the fray, "only a fool would try to use bugs against the Swarm Alchemist!"

"Marcus Oren, formerly the Iron Sole Alchemist." The same tone, the same sentence structure as when he pronounced sentence on Shao. I tensed, suddenly fearful of being attacked on both fronts. "Your execution can wait until the greater threat is eliminated."

"Good enough for me," I grinned.

A wave of red alchemic light from Shao saw the appearance of four fox-like chimeras from a nearby bush. Each grew in the Philosopher Stone's red light to the size of large buses, their limbs thickening relative to their growth to support their scaled up mass. Two of them set to work crushing the remaining insect chimeras underfoot. A third launched itself at the entrenched position of the two State Alchemists, and the last headed my way.

With the bird chimeras mopped up, Frank, Melvin, and Ken fired their machine-gun at the advancing monster. The creature's fur had been matted in such a way as to slow the impact of the high caliber machine-gun bullets, and the creature's general toughness let it shrug off what remained. The Gunslinger Alchemist shot the ground beneath the creature's feet, causing a massive stone fist to emerge, punching the chimera hard enough in its stomach to launch it ten feet in the air.

I sprinted at the chimera standing between me and Shao. I knew from experience how fast Shao's chimeras could be, so just before I got in range of those powerful jaws, I slipped into a foot first slide. The arrays on my shoes dug a trench, glazed smooth on all sides to provide virtually no friction, and I leaned backward to ride this tunnel between the chimera's legs, below the reach of its fangs.

I didn't look back to see if the chimera had turned. I knew the others would be regenerated by now, and keeping it busy. They didn't disappoint. Deprived of his superhuman strength in his organic limbs, Wrath effortlessly switched to relying on his automail. He leaped on the head of the gigantic fox chimera and plunged a mechanical fist into one of its eyes. The chimera violently thrashed its head in pain as blood poured out of the open wound, and Wrath was thrown off.

Lust clapped her hands and slapped a palm against a nearby tree, transmuting it into a jointed arm, with the leaves transmuting into a padded catcher's mitt. Wrath landed in the glove and his momentum was gently slowed as the contraption set him on the ground.

Sloth let them deal with the chimera and rushed forward with me. She didn't neglect an opportunity to help along the way, however. As she passed under the beast, she ran through its left fore-paw. A hole in the rough shape of her body was left behind, ruining the limb as she ran on.

The Gunslinger Alchemist and the machine-gun crew continued to pin the chimera they were fighting in position to keep it from advancing and tearing them apart. Also, to keep it in place for the Swarm Alchemist's trap. Faster than I'd ever seen him move, the Swarm Alchemist rushed at the giant chimera, trusting in his soldiers to cover his advance. Feet from the monster, the Swarm Alchemist stopped and slapped a palm down on the ground.

Gold light poured off thousands of moths, beetles, and other insects that had, unnoticed, arranged themselves around Shao's beast. The living transmutation circle didn't effect the fox chimera. It effected it's fleas. Growing into a deadly swarm of chimeras of their own, the fleas increased in mass as the thick, protective fur of the monster was broken down to provide it.

That gave the gun crew an opening, and they took it. A long burst tore into the fox chimera, and chewed through its exposed skin and muscle. As the chimera died, the Swarm Alchemist's newly transmuted bugs, the size of a fist, numbering in the hundreds, and sporting traits of wasps, bees, beetles, and scorpions, flew in formation at the fox chimeras killing Shao's ant chimeras. Following them was a wave of ordinary insects from the makeshift circle that had created them.

With Sloth and I advancing on him, his chimeras either subverted or dying, and the two State Alchemists almost ready to turn their attention toward him, Shao made a desperate move. Holding the Stone over his head, the area was saturated with red light. The Colonel's swarm of insects were the first to feel the effects, dropping dead.

"He's transmuting the atmosphere!" called out the Swarm Alchemist sharply, making sure he was heard over the combat. "Gunslinger, get us a shelter!"

The Gunslinger Alchemist wasted no time firing at the ground beneath his feet, and the gun crew and two State Alchemists disappeared beneath an opaque earthen dome.

The poisoning was progressing in order of body mass, and the half-dozen ant chimeras ground to a halt like winding down clockwork. The fox chimeras were more sluggish than they'd been, still dying, but doing so more slowly than the others. Izumi made short work of the injured one now that its movements were slow enough that she could hit it through the brain with a transmuted cannon.

Sloth tackled me from behind, throwing me off my feet and phasing us both through the jaws of the fox chimera I didn't see coming. I felt a tug of resistance as we passed through, and I saw the destructive results of this particular application of Sloth's powers for the first time from this end. Its snout and jaw were left with a bleeding hole where we'd passed through, and scooped out the mass as we phased.

The unexpected save and unfamiliar sensation left me momentarily disoriented in a heap at Shao's feet. The Sewing Life Alchemist gripped Sloth by the shoulder and red light poured from her oroboros mark. Her eyes went dark and she fell limp.

"There we are," said Shao in a satisfied tone. "One down, three to go. Now that I've blanked her memories, I can implant fresh ones when this is all over."

"You sick bastard!" yelled Lust before I managed to fully process what had happened. She clapped her hands and caused a massive nest of spikes to impale Shao, enough that his body vanished entirely behind the knot of stone thorns.

Taking Sloth in my arms, I ran to help Wrath and Lust, transmuting a ramp under my feet using the arrays on my shoes. When I was over the head of the only remaining chimera able to stand, I jumped off my transmuted ramp and landed feet first on top of it with Sloth still in my arms. I used the red stone I was still carrying to make up for not having a clear idea what Shao had done to the air, and managed to sheath my feet in alchemcially superheated air. I burned straight through the creature's body letting out a cry of grief as I came out the bottom to land near the others.

Red light exploded from the nest of spikes Shao had been contained in, scattering stone shrapnel across our battlefield. Wrath managed to block the worst of it with his automail, but Lust and I ended up with half a dozen spikes embedded in us each. I set Sloth down in the trench I'd previously dug and turned to face Shao.

Wrath wasted no time charging at the Sewing Life Alchemist who'd emerged fully regenerated from Lust's attack, still gripping the glowing Philosopher Stone. Wrath's incoherent screams of rage matched my mood, but I couldn't afford to surrender my own most potent weapon, my reason. I clapped my hands and transmuted the stones embedded in my body into a kind of vest, armoring my torso and concealing my oroboros.

Shao fired off another volley of spikes to drive Wrath back. Wrath tried to press forward anyway, despite the pain, but the raw momentum forced him back to where Lust and I waited under cover.

"Armor's not a bad idea," said Lust. "Let me show you one better." Knocking the spikes out of her abdomen, the woman was used to chronic pain, Lust clapped her hands and held them there. From the palms of her hands, a dark grey discoloration spread. In seconds, her entire body was transmuted into the same material, her hair vanished in the process, and her mouth was held seemingly immobile with enlarged teeth visible past nonexistent lips.

"You transmuted your own body," I gaped incredulously. "Alchemists can't do that!"

"Homonculi can," she said somehow without moving her jaw. "Your predecessor, the previous Greed, called it 'The Ultimate Shield'. Achieved by rearranging the bonds between carbon atoms in your body. Nothing can hurt it." With that, she vaulted out of the trench and charged at Shao like some kind of demon.

She was indeed unharmed by the impacts Shao's stone spikes made, but her rapid advance slowed, then reversed as enough impacts just pushed her backward toward the trench. I held my hands together and vaulted out of the trench to join her charge. I kept my eyes wide open to see the spikes coming, even if I couldn't dodge in time. I reached Lust in seconds, stone spikes passing harmlessly through my body. Lust's face was rigid and expressionless, but her voice carried shock as she asked, "How?"

"You used alchemy to reproduce the old Greed's Ultimate Shield. I'm using it to mimic Sloth's Ultimate Escape," I declared as I continued to transmute my body to allow the stone to occupy the same space as me and pass through harmlessly. All the time I'd spent analyzing and theorizing about how Sloth's powers worked paid off now, and I rushed past Lust, who was unable to follow me through the birage.

Shao saw me coming, but only had enough time to tighten his grip on the Philosopher's Stone and hold it close to his body. Keeping my hands together to maintain the Ultimate Escape, I brought up a foot and kicked Shao in the side of the head. Shao rolled with it, and tumbled away a good ten feet. He got to one knee and pointed the Stone at me. He broke down my arms and legs. My red stones used up, I was left a head and torso after the attack, virtually helpless.

"Two down," noted Shao, clearly pleased with himself. Lust and Wrath both paused at the thought of charging in. Even the Ultimate Shield wouldn't protect against that.

A line of large stone spikes fell out of the sky, two of them penetrating Shao's body. All eyes followed their arcs back to see a muscular, shirtless man with a single curl of blonde hair and an absolute sparkle of enthusiasm. He stood in what looked like a bodybuilder's pose for reasons I couldn't fathom, and addressed me where I lay.

"Marcus Oren, we received your letter! It is with the deepest of regrets that I must acknowledge how much of what has transpired must rest upon these perfectly sculpted shoulders! I should have put a stop to this man's potential to be a threat long ago! But allow me to correct that oversight and aid you in this time of need!"

"Major! The gas!" called out Lust, but she was too late, as the Strongarm Alchemist's perfect posture was already starting to slump and his eyes lost focus.

I may have been torn limb from limb, without a transmutation circle, but I was not actually completely helpless. One red stone was still in my pocket, and with it, I didn't need to move to transmute. I combined what I knew of Shao's alchemy with what I could see, smell, and taste in the air, and made an educated guess. A small tornado of blue alchemic light rose up from my broken body and spread outward, with wisps of blue light reaching past my would-be rescuer. As the light traveled, the air was purified and made breathable.

Alex Louis Armstrong stood tall once again, unintentionally making a great distraction for what came next. The stone dome protecting the other two State Alchemists and the machine-gun crew transmuted into a pillbox, with the machine-gun barrel now protruding from a narrow slit. Frank, Melvin, and Ken opened fire as a stream of insect chimeras crawled through the slit before taking flight.

The Strongarm Alchemist punched the ground, transmuting a line of spikes advancing toward Shao. A single gunshot from the pillbox got to him first, and Shao's entire body was reduced to a red smear. Shao regenerated just in time to be impaled by the spikes.

"You can't keep regenerating forever!" exclaimed Armstrong. "The stolen lives that sustain you are limited, unlike our resolve!"

Shao moved to use the Philosopher's Stone to transmute the air again and poison his attackers, but I saw it coming and acted first, harmlessly altering the composition of the air and disrupting his intended transmutation. He took a hail of machine-gun fire for his efforts and found a swarm of chimeras stripping the flesh from an arm before he regenerated, slapping a palm against the ground. Again, I anticipated him, changing the island's soil composition just before his hand came down. He may have had the Philosopher's Stone, and be able to overpower my alchemy in a direct contest, but I was both a better alchemist and a lot less distracted.

His regeneration gradually being overwhelmed and his alchemy suddenly useless, Shao made one last desperate move. He ate the Philosopher's Stone. Once he'd done so, his regeneration moved so fast, the bullets might as well not have hit him for all he noticed. The projectile spikes the Strongarm Alchemist launched were casually swatted out of the air and reduced to powder thanks to Shao's increased strength and speed.

"I didn't want to have to resort to this," noted Shao, "but at least I'll have three full time agents working to provide me a new Stone, and I won't have to send Nina out."

Lust thrust a handful of red stones into Wrath's hands without taking her eyes off the Sewing Life Alchemist and said, "Wrath, help Greed."

Wrath looked from Lust to Shao for a brief moment with worry, then hastened to carry out Lust's orders.

Lust sprinted at Shao, and the covering fire provided by the military let up to let her through. Once in melee range, Lust unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks on the Sewing Life Alchemist. With his Philosopher Stone fueled strength and speed, Shao didn't need to be a skilled combatant to keep up. Lust didn't land a single blow, while she only escaped injury from Shao's attacks thanks to the Ultimate Shield.

Wrath watched the combat unfold as he stuffed red stones into my mouth, allowing me to gradually regenerate my limbs.

"She isn't going to win," said Wrath with worry in his voice that wasn't for his own sake.

That was when I saw the pattern of her footwork. She was trying to draw a transmutation circle in the dirt without Shao taking notice. Every attack, feint, and blocked or unblocked blow was a distraction. Unfortunately, she'd never finish it without help.

"Swarm, Strongarm, Gunslinger! Keep him contained!" I yelled out. "Frank, Melvin, Ken! Aim for his head and don't worry about friendly fire!"

Armstrong responded immediately, punching a tree and transmuting it into a birage of high velocity spikes that landed in a ring around the combatants. The Swarm Alchemist nodded to his men, and his cloud of insects began buzzing in Shao's face, leading him to stumble and lose track of his position whenever he went to move out of the circle.

With enough red stones in me to regenerate my limbs, I clapped my hands and yelled out, "Lust! Clay!" before transmuting the ground into a stable medium. Lust got the message, that I'd stopped disrupting alchemy attempts to manipulate the soil, clapped her hands, kicked at Shao to get some distance, then used her alchemy to scribe a large array around herself and Shao. It wasn't the Flamel array I was expecting.

"You haven't used alchemy since losing the Stone," noted Lust. "The alchemic light your transmutations used was red. Somehow you've made two homonculi without ever seeing the Gate."

Wrath flinched at the mention. Meanwhile, the military let up their attacks, out of concern they'd inadvertently damage the circle that looked to be their only hope of victory. I'd seen that circle before, in Dante's notebook.

"Everyone who can still call yourself a human being, get under cover! Now! Don't so much as peek out until I give the all clear!" I yelled desperately.

"What's she doing?" asked Wrath.

"That circle is designed to sacrifice a homonculus in order to force open the Gate," I told him as two stone domes sprung up to protect the soldiers.

Without the support of the military, Shao's disorientation ended, and he noticed the circle at his feet. Not aware of the full details, but smart enough to know it was a bad idea to be standing in the center of an unknown transmutation circle, Shao hopped the spikes surrounding the array and started to flee.

"We have to get him back there!" I said as I began to run toward Shao.

"Stay where you are!" responded Lust sharply. "It's over. Goodbye, Wrath." With that, she clapped her hands and placed them over her heart, activating the array with herself at the center. Her body glowed blue and broke down in the reaction, and the Gate opened.

"Mommy!" yelled Wrath in grief and pain. He started to run toward the Gate as though with some half formed idea of rescuing Izumi. I caught him and held him back as he struggled.

Shao hadn't run far enough. As the carved stone doors swung open, they towered over him. Black tendrils reached out of the Gate, and dragged the Sewing Life Alchemist screaming inside before the doors swung shut and the Gate vanished.

"You let Mommy die!" Wrath screamed and punched me in the face with his automail arm. I staggered back and fell to the ground. I didn't have the heart to resist. "Mommy's dead because of you! I hate you!" Wrath screamed at me before running off with tears streaming down his face.

I choked down my own grief and guilt over Izumi while I made my way to the trench where Sloth's body laid. I dropped to my knees and sobbed the closest thing to a prayer I'd uttered since Cornello was exposed.

"Leto, Ishbala, anyone, if you're out there, please, let what Shao did to her just be another memory block. Please, God, let her still be in there."

I rolled Sloth over on her stomach, clapped my hands and pressed both of them onto the oroboros mark on her back. Blue light poured from the mark as I desperately pleaded that I hadn't lost her too today. She stirred.

"Sloth, are you alright?"

"Greed? What happened?"

I hugged her tight. "Shao blocked your memories again. Izumi sacrificed herself to send him through the Gate."

"They're both gone?" she asked, with tears of her own welling up.

"I thought I'd lost you too."

We clung to one another for a few minutes before I was forced to pull away.

"Come on," I said. "This isn't quite done yet."

I walked over to one of the domes, clapped my hands, and transmuted it away, revealing the Strongarm Alchemist. He quickly surveyed the scene.

"Is it over?" he asked.

"He's gone. Izumi sacrificed herself to pull it off."

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked in an unnaturally subdued tone. Whatever else he was, he understood grief.

"Give us a ten minute head start before you tell Colonel Swarm it's over," I requested.

"Of course. What will you do now? Where will you go?"

"It's probably better if you don't know," I told him. "No one can order you to tell what you don't know."

I extended a hand to him. "Major, it has been an honor serving with you," I said.

"The honor has been mine," he declared, clasping my hand firmly.

. . .

Author's comments:  
At long last, Shao Tucker has met his fate, but at a hefty price. A few loose ends remain to be tied up before our heroes can truly put this behind them.


	23. Tying Up Loose Ends

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 23) Tying Up Loose Ends  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Sloth and I gathered up the stones and seeds on the island over the next few days, staying in hiding and returning to Dublith only after the military left. As fate would have it, we arrived on the day of Izumi's funeral. We waited until only Sig and Mason were left standing at the grave before approaching.

"I knew she was gone that same day," Sig said when we stepped into view. "Her body just fell apart, like it'd been rotting for ages. Even the bones turned to dust."

"I'm sorry," I said, though it didn't feel like nearly enough.

Sig shook his head. "You gave us a few more days together than we would have had otherwise. More important, you helped her use that time to finally connect with Wrath."

"Just in time for them to be torn apart again," I said bitterly.

"Major Armstrong told us you won," noted Mason. "That Izumi chose to sacrifice herself to stop Shao and save you all."

"Yeah," I replied numbly. "Her last words were, 'Goodbye, Wrath."

We stood in silence together for a while before Sig asked, "What will you do now?"

"The last time the homonculi and their master were defeated, Shao was a loose end that no one bothered to tie up. There are still some loose ends this time, and I'm not making the same mistakes."

"I thought you'd be looking to leave the country with the way that Colonel with the creepy glasses was looking for you," said Mason.

"Running away won't fix things here. If I go without trying to clean up this mess, it's only a matter of time before we have another Liore. Another Ishbal. I think we can put a stop to it, but if not, I need to know we tried."

. . .

"You didn't tell them were we were going," said Sloth as we sat facing one another on the train.

"They would've tried to talk us out of this, or worse, insisted on coming along to help."

"You realize if the Fuhrer's heard about my father's death, this plan comes down around our ears."

"I know. How are you doing?"

"Better than I expected," Sloth admitted. "I think part of me expected it to come down to this. I feel worse about Izumi and Wrath."

"Even so, I'm sorry it had to end like this. I meant what I said when I promised to try to take him alive."

"You did try. Maybe if we'd hit harder, sooner, we wouldn't have lost Izumi."

"She wasn't happy about being a homonculus in the first place. I think if it didn't end like this, she would have just killed herself later."

"Maybe, but that doesn't make what happened any better, really."

"You're right about that."

. . .

It was getting late in the day when Sloth and I stepped into Fuhrer Hakuro's office through a wall. Hakuro started at the intrusion, but relaxed slightly, recognizing Sloth's homonculus form.

"I see the rescue mission was successful," said Hakuro. "Who's the new guy?"

"This is Greed," said Sloth, casually adopting the mannerisms of her old agent persona. "We added him to our faction as a bonus when dealing with the abduction. Greed, give him a face he'll recognize."

At her word, I shifted from my homonculus appearance with its pale skin, black hair, and slitted violet eyes, to my human appearance, the brown haired, dark skinned, brown eyed young man that the Fuhrer had personally admitted into the State Alchemist program.

"A pleasure to see you again, Fuhrer," I said with a slight bow.

"The Iron Sole Alchemist? Isn't he the one who kidnapped you?"

"And now he's had a reverse of fortunes," said Sloth. "The Philosopher Stone stripped him of his will. He belongs to us now."

"I see," said Fuhrer Hakuro, obviously uneasy. Sloth smirked at watching him squirm.

"He has some advantages to contribute to our cause," noted Sloth. "His position in the military would give us someone with rank to order the atrocities needed to forge a new stone that can't be traced back to your office."

"That won't work," said the Fuhrer, shaking his head. "The idiot admitted to human transmutation." Suddenly, his eyes went wide and his muscles tensed, as though he just now realized I was in the room.

"I take no offense," I assured the Fuhrer. "In a very real sense, I'm not the same person anymore."

"But the Master won't be happy to hear you can't make something this simple go away. Perhaps we were wrong to think you could be of use. Greed-"

"Wait!" the Fuhrer interrupted. "I didn't say we can't do it, just it'll take some time."

"Oh?" asked Sloth with mock innocence.

"The problem, like with your previous request, is that damned Swarm Alchemist. He's always technically on the right side of the rules, so I can't have him drummed out or demoted to irrelevancy. He's dug up too many clues about you and your master even with the relevant files classified. Sending him to Ishbal didn't get him killed, even when you started riling up the population. And he's the one Iron Sole confessed to."

"You lack the creativity and political talent of your predecessor," said Sloth in a superior tone, "but you are only human. Promote the Swarm Alchemist."

"What?" demanded the Fuhrer.

Sloth spoke slowly, as though big words might confuse the head of state. "A Brigadier General could be informed about the military's policy of using human transmutation for our own ends. The details of laboratory five's operation could be provided and the true goals of the Ishbal rebellion could be revealed."

"Are you insane? He's enough trouble now without that information."

"Why do you think you need to tell him the whole truth?" asked Sloth. "Promote him, then explain that the Iron Sole Alchemist was operating under your orders. Issue a full pardon and promote our newest tool alongside him. Do I need to spell out every detail?"

"I don't like this plan. There are too many ways it could come back to bite us."

"You don't have to like it," snapped Sloth. "You just have to do it. I'll leave Greed here with you while you make the arrangements. Greed, once it's done, it will be time to give him what we promised."

"You mean you can do it?" asked the Fuhrer, all hesitation about his orders forgotten.

"Immortality," I said. "Once your job is done."

. . .

I was in full uniform with a new pocketwatch when the Swarm Alchemist stepped into the Fhurer's office.

"At ease, soldier," ordered the Fuhrer in an attempt to forestall violence.

"Fuhrer Hakuro," stated the Swarm Alchemist in the same annoyed tone he used on his underlings, "you have received my reports regarding the crimes committed by the Iron Sole Alchemist. The law is quite clear on the subject of human transmutation."

"You're a good soldier, Daniels," remarked the Fuhrer. "You follow orders, you know the regulations, and you didn't hesitate to report and confront your direct subordinate, with no thought about how it might reflect on your command or affect your career. I apologize for keeping you in the dark as long as I have, but the nature of the work demanded it."

The Fuhrer waited for a reply, but was disappointed. Colonel Travis Daniels just continued to stare through those reflective glasses of his.

Finally, the silence overwhelmed the Fuhrer, and he awkwardly continued. "Yes... Well... As I said, your efforts have been commendable. I've called you in to promote you to the rank of Brigadier General, so I can finally let you know what this has all been about."

"I shall make the necessary adjustments to my uniform immediately once this interview concludes," was all the Swarm Alchemist said.

"Well then, General," said the Fuhrer, feeling more confident in his authority, "I can reveal that the Iron Sole Alchemist has been acting on my personal orders. The deception needed to be thorough to flush out the traitors in our midst."

Again, the Fuhrer paused, and again, the Swarm Alchemist just stared in response. Deciding to press on, the Fuhrer continued, "I'm issuing a full pardon for any crimes the Iron Sole Alchemist has committed in the course of this investigation, particularly for any crimes related to human transmutation, assaults on military personnel, unauthorized absences, and the like. In addition, he is being promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in recognition of the good he's done as part of this investigation."

"A pardon from the office of the Fuhrer has not been sufficient, on its own, to expunge an offense of human alchemy even during Fuhrer Bradley's reign. The Assembly must also approve such a pardon."

"Astute observation as always, General. I met with members of the Assembly in closed session this morning." He produced a piece of paper from a jacket pocket and handed it to General Daniels.

The Swarm Alchemist read the page in complete silence, in its entirety, before replying, "I understand, sir."

"I'm sure you're eager to get back to your command. I won't keep you. I'm sure we'll speak again in the future."

Daniels exited the room.

"You're lucky I made you go through proper channels," I chided Fuhrer Hakuro. "He'd have noticed if anything was amiss with the pardon."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

"Daniels is no threat to you, I promise you that."

"Well, he won't be after your master makes good on his promise. When do we go see him?"

"We don't," I said. "I'm perfectly capable of handling the process on my own, Fuhrer."

"You? Okay, fine. What do we do?"

"First I'll attach your soul to this disc," I said, producing a coin-sized circle of metal. "Then I'll use alchemy to transmute your body into an immortal homonculus. Then I'll attach your soul back to that body."

"This doesn't sound safe. Maybe we should wait for your master."

"I've done this twice before. However the process sounds, it's perfectly safe."

"Okay, but should we do this here?"

"Just have a seat."

I pricked his finger on a letter opener and drew a blood seal on the small metal disc. Setting it on the desk, I clapped my hands and touched his forehead and the coin. The blood seal flared blue for only an instant, and the soul attachment was complete. Sloth stepped in through a wall where she'd been observing.

"It worked," said Hakuro's coin, excitedly.

"It's a pity you never worked out the details of your succession," noted Sloth.

"What point would there be to a succession when I'm immortal?" he asked.

"Except I'm not going to put you back in your body," I said coldly.

"What? But we had a deal. I did everything your master said!"

"Shao Tucker is not our master," I replied. "And he's gone."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked as I carefully placed the coin in a small black box.

"First, because you were helping Shao spread war and death in his psychotic pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone. You'll now be removed. Without a mark on your body, no one will suspect foul play. And you won't be able to cause any more harm.

"But if that were all, I'd break the blood seal right now and end it. You may not remember this, but I'm from Liore. Even without Shao's manipulations, you decided that having civilians gang raped was an acceptable course of action. So here's what I'm going to do as a result. I'm going to close the lid on this box, and you'll stay there, cut off from all your senses, unable to move and unable to die, forever."

I closed the lid before he had a chance to beg or scream.

"That was a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Sloth.

"I told him it was forever," I said. "I was lying. He doesn't understand the hows of homonculi or the Stone. His knowledge doesn't make him a threat, just his authority, which expires the moment someone finds the corpse."

I locked the box and set it in an innocuous spot on his desk.

"His successor can decide when to break the blood seal," I said.

Joining hands, Sloth and I exited through the back wall.

. . .

"Removing one corrupt leader won't change the system, Greed," Sloth said as we sat together on the train to Ishbal.

"No," I agreed, "but what else can we do? I couldn't just leave him in power."

"I'm not saying you should have. I'm just saying there's no guarantee whoever gets the job next won't be just as bad, maybe even worse."

"I don't know anything about politics, Sloth," I admitted. "I'm an alchemist. A damn good one. I make people's lives better by making things, fixing things, and occasionally curing the sick and healing the injured, not that those last two have a great track record. I can see all these wonderful things we can do, but I have no idea how to organize people or fix the taboos standing in the way."

"You don't have to save the world on your own, Greed. And I'm not just talking about me. Dante's group spent hundreds of years shaping this country into an engine of suffering and death as a means to acquire the Stone. They didn't do everything themselves."

"They put one of their own on the throne," I pointed out.

"Only toward the very end, and even then, there were a lot of savvy people Bradley couldn't control."

"Aren't you supposed to be making this sound easier?"

"We don't want a world of suffering and death," she pointed out. "Those people too noble to buckle under Bradley's rule and the homonculi's manipulations are still out there. I'm thinking we should start supporting the right side is all."

"I love you," I said with a warm smile.

"I love you too, Greed," she declared as she snuggled up to me on the seat. I kissed her gently on the lips and held her close until the train reached Ishbal.

. . .

Sloth and I walked into the military base on our way to the Swarm Alchemist's office. We caught sight of Frank, Melvin, and Ken and vice versa. We all froze, staring across the room at one another, each of us unsure where to start, and each afraid of how the other would react.

"I wish things had turned out differently between us," I offered first.

"Just because we showed up, under orders, to bail your ass out of trouble doesn't mean we're friends again," said Frank with heat in his voice. "I'm still pissed at you, so if the Colonel will grant his permission, I'll be leaving."

"I'm not going to hold anyone here, and I'm sure not pulling rank on any of you. Fact is, I'm here to resign my commission."

Permission granted, Frank turned on his heel and marched out of the office, sparing only a glance back to Melvin and Ken, who made no move to follow him, before shutting the door.

"You weren't really on a secret mission from the Fuhrer," said Ken. "The manhunt's been called off, and we know the official line, but we both know it isn't true. The General's not stupid either. He'll respect the pardon, but I don't think he'll drop this investigation anymore than he did with Tucker."

"It's one of his best traits," I said with a weak smile.

"I'm sorry about how I reacted," blurted out Melvin. "I had a lot of time to think after you left, and I'm sorry. I was scared and confused."

"Thanks, Melvin," I said. "You have no idea how much that means to me." I extended a hand out to him, which he took gratefully.

"We all still care," said Ken a moment later. "Even Frank. He wouldn't be as hurt and angry as he is still if he didn't care."

"Thanks, Ken," I replied sincerely.

"Do you have a plan for after you leave the military?" he asked.

"I've heard that the Armstrong Foundation is preparing to help rebuild Liore. Figured I'd get some use out of my experience here."

"Well whatever you're really planning, take care of yourself," suggested Ken.

We shared a conspiratorial smile and then Sloth and I headed into the Swarm Alchemist's office.

. . .

"General, these papers contain as complete an accounting of my actions as I'm able to give," I told the Swarm Alchemist as I set a heavy set of notebooks on his desk. "The alchemy techniques I used in the human transmutation are included alongside the detailed results of each of my encounters with Shao Tucker and the results of my investigations into how he accomplished what he did. I want to make particular note of the fact that Sloth was not acting under her own free will, and cannot be held responsible for her actions while serving the Sewing Life Alchemist."

"I will take your report and have it filed appropriately, Colonel. Will it contain an explanation for why you killed the Fuhrer?"

I flinched, then forced myself to press on. "I didn't kill the Fuhrer. You will find the details starting on page 396. In summary, he was the one suppressing investigation into Shao's activities, and was actively attempting to instigate another war in Ishbal to provoke the creation of a Philosopher's Stone. Despite this, I did nothing to him that he did not specifically request and agree to, and I did not kill him."

"Remain here," he said shortly and opened the top book to the indicated page.

Once he finished the relevant section, I said, "I'm leaving these notes with you, because you're a man of principle. Whatever our disagreements, I haven't forgotten the way you pursued the truth about Shao Tucker's experiments or the way you let Wrath go home. Someone has to decide whether to break Hakuro's blood seal, put him in a new body, or leave him as he is. Those notes cover the how, as well as some of the arguments for the why. If you aren't the one to make the decision yourself, I trust you to hand it off to the right people."

I paused and gave him the chance to respond. I didn't really expect him to. Then I detached my silver pocketwatch from my belt and placed it on his desk.

"Which brings me to the last reason I'm here. I'm officially resigning my position with the military. I can't keep dancing up to the line and still know where the right thing is. Goodbye, General."

With that, I walked out of his office, out of the camp, and out of Ishbal.

. . .

Author's comments:  
This concludes what I'm now thinking of as the first season of the Iron Sole Alchemist. Additional chapters have been written, and the fic will continue into a second season, but for those of you looking for a natural breaking point, this is it.


	24. A New Threat

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 24) A New Threat  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

"Is there a reason we have to get there by hiking through the desert?" asked Sloth as the sun rose over our second day of walking.

"We don't need water or rest," I reminded her.

"That isn't the point. We could have taken a train, made it there faster, and been more comfortable on the trip."

"No trains go to Liore," I said. "It was always isolated. So much so that we'd never heard of alchemists. Maybe we could have gotten a car, but I like the quiet walking in the desert."

"Easy for you to say," Sloth pouted. "Those shoes of yours make walking in sand a breeze. I keep losing my footing. Passing through matter's no help when the ground on a whole is this unsteady."

I cracked a smile. "Is this your way of asking for a piggy-back ride?"

She blinked.

I gave a soft chuckle and got to my knees. "Hop on."

Sloth smiled broadly, threw her arms out at her sides, and ran up to me. She scrambled over my back, draped her legs over my shoulders, and wrapped her arms around my forehead. I took hold of her ankles and stood up.

"We need to get you some shoes," I noted as we continued our trek.

The sight that greeted me when I crested the final dune literally took my breath away. When I'd been here last, the handful of survivors had been evacuated with plans to spread out through neighboring cities, and the city itself had been so completely destroyed by the forces of alchemy that it was indistinguishable from the surrounding sands. Now, I could see buildings. Homes, businesses, the steeples of a rebuilt church.

I didn't dare to move or breathe, out of fear that what I saw would vanish before my eyes. That this might be nothing more than a wistful memory, a mirage, and if I moved a muscle, it would again be as I'd last left it. Tears welled up in my eyes, and when the city did not vanish when I was forced to blink, I found the courage to step forward, and enter the rebuilt city.

I saw so many familiar faces walking through the crowded streets. The Ishbal reconstruction had skewed my intuition for the speed of a reconstruction project like this. For a people that didn't reject the benefits of alchemy out of hand, a city could be made liveable in days.

I was greeted warmly by old acquaintance as just one more returning son of Liore. More than once, I caught Sloth studying my face, clearly pleased to see me how happy the experience made me.

At length, I found Major Armstrong, in civilian clothing, addressing a crowd near the central fountain. Scanning the crowd, I caught sight of Rose, no doubt the other architect of Liore's rebirth. Sloth and I picked our way through the crowd to where Rose was.

"I don't know if Major Armstrong told you anything about what happened," I began when I was standing alongside her, "but it's over."

"Marcus?" she said, startled. Apparently she hadn't seen or heard me approach. "That's good to hear."

"We can talk later," I said, returning my attention to the rousing speech about growing Liore into a shining jewel rivaling central in its splendor. Visions of libraries and laboratories, lifting my people out of ignorance danced before my mind's eye.

What shook me out of my revere were panicked screams. A sickly purple transmutation circle was visible for a split second before the pavement broke up. Dozens of armored figures emerged from a tunnel beneath the streets.

"I'm not loosing this town again," I declared. Sharing a nod with Sloth, we both crouched down to rush the invaders when we heard a loud clap. A tornado lifted up a dozen of the invaders as I caught sight of the alchemist who created the cyclone. Dressed in a long red coat and white gloves, I barely recognized Alphonse Elric.

He could only use his tornado because the enemy was clustered tightly together away from both the civilians and most of the buildings. The other soldiers wold need to be confronted more personally. Sloth and I joined the fray.

I clapped my hands mid run, transmuting the Ultimate Shield onto myself before punching one of the armored figures hard enough to dent his chestplate and knock him back ten feet. Sloth went to run through one of them, passed through the armor, but impacted something unexpected inside. She was stopped dead, and a heavy fist cracked her jaw and threw her backward toward the civilians.

"What the hell was that?" demanded Sloth as a line of blue alchemic light danced over her bruise and regenerated her injury.

"Some sort of generic alchemy disruptor built into the armor maybe," I guessed as I stomped my right foot and crushed one of the soldiers between two heavy stone slabs.

"Makes sense," she said. "Guess I'll have to do this the hard way." She sprinted at one of the figures, jumped, reached just into the metal plate of his armor, and pulled out a long, thick-bladed knife. She dropped to the ground and drove the blade into the knee joint of the armored suit.

"How'd you know he had a knife in there?" I asked casually after taking a punch to the jaw that cracked my opponent's gauntlet.

"He didn't," replied Sloth smugly. "Remember that trick you used to get the Ishbalans to accept you using alchemy in their reconstruction?" With that, she grabbed a heavy pavement stone and lifted it up, revealing a set of stone spikes beneath. The underside, which she turned to me, contained what looked like a spike mold. She proceeded to strike one of the soldiers with the mold hard enough to shatter it an knock him onto the prepared bed of spikes.

"Phasing only part of an object to mimic destruction alchemy. Nice," I replied before kicking another soldier over onto the same bed of spikes.

Alphonse and Major Armstrong joined in the fray at some point, and the four of us made short work of the remaining forces. Some of the other military personnel on hand checked over the bodies and confirmed they'd been dead since before the battle started. I found no sign of anything that would disrupt alchemy in their armor, and Sloth waved a hand back and forth through the corpses, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with her powers.

Without warning, a purple disk of light appeared in the sky over the piled up bodies. Sloth and I scrambled away from them as they began to rise off the ground and disappear into the alchemic light. I don't know what possessed Al to rush in and cling to one of the armored figures as it rose up off the ground toward the portal. Rose was the first to reach him, and tried to drag him back. Begging him to let go, Rose managed to pull him back just before the last soldier vanished and the portal closed.

Al had fallen unconscious shortly after the portal closed, and Major Armstrong arranged for some of the soldiers to transport him to Risembool, where there were people who would take care of him.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" I asked Major Armstrong as the car left.

"That young man's stronger than he looks, and he's recovered from far worse. I wouldn't worry," he said.

"I hope so," said Sloth. "I wanted to thank him for what he did for Nina all those years ago."

A sad look passed over the Major's face, extinguishing his normal sparkling enthusiasm. "I'm sorry, but he still hasn't recovered his memor of those days."

"That's alright," she said, unperturbed. "Still can you let us know when he's well enough to talk? Even if he doesn't remember, I still want to thank him."

"Of course."

"What do you suppose that portal was?" I asked, changing the subject.

"It has to have been how they got here in the first place," replied Armstrong. "There is no tunnel or any sign of one having been there. Whoever sent them must've called them back. Do you have nay idea what they were?"

"They weren't homonculi, said Sloth. "Homonculi have human body compositions, so I can pass through one as easy as the other." She demonstrated, swinging her arm through his and my leg in a single motion.

"But whatever was strange about their composition vanished when they stopped moving," I noted. "It's some form of human alchemy, but not one I've ever heard of."

"I was afraid of that. It seems whoever this enemy-" Armstrong was cut off by the grey haired Warrant Officer Falman.

"Sir, we've received word from Central. Apparently at the same time the attack was happening here, there was a major earthquake in Central."

"The other end of the portal?" I guessed.

"Could be. I'll need to head for Central and check it out."

"Wait, Major," said Sloth as Armstrong turned to leave. "We were hoping to talk to you about the Fuhrer."

"If you like, we can talk on the way."

As the three of us turned to leave, Rose grabbed my arm, and said, "If you find out who did this, make sure they can't try again. Next time we might not be so lucky in who we have around."

"Of course, Rose," I agreed. When I took the first step out of town, I activated the array on my shoe. Blue arcs of energy shot over the ruined town center behind me and transmuted the broken street back to its original form.

. . .

It wasn't until the three of us were on a train from East City that the subject of the government was properly breached.

"This is the man you want to speak to," said Alex Louis Armstrong, handing over a photo realistic drawing of a man with an eye patch. "Private Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist."

"Wow, this drawing is amazing," said Sloth.

"Why thank you. This artistic ability has been passed down the Armstong family line for generations!"

"Can you give me an pointers?" she asked.

"I'd be happy to!"

"Before you two get started, I interrupted, "why do you think this is the guy who can help us?"

"Mustang recognized the problems with this country long before it became clear that homonculi were involved. He rose to the rank of Brigadier General in pursuit of enough influence to implement reforms. He's a natural leader who inspires loyalty, both from his force of personality, and the strength of his convictions. He only abandoned his quest to become the Fuhrer himself when he learned how much of what he'd been fighting against was flowing from the Fuhrer himself and the homonculus conspiracy surrounding him."

"He killed Bradley, the others were dealt with, and he decided he wasn't needed anymore," Sloth summarized, nodding. "I think he's right, Greed. If we can convince him, the Flame Alchemist could be a huge help."

"Okay," I said. "Where is he now?"

"He got himself posted at an isolated outpost out north in the Brigs mountains."

"We'll head out there after we finish up in Central, then."

"What do you have to do in Central?" asked Armstrong.

"I need to find out who sent those soldiers to Liore and how. Mustang can wait."

After a moment of silence, Sloth chirped, "Now, about those lessons..."

Sloth and I parted ways with Armstrong on our arrival in Central. While he went to check in with the military, we approached the massive fissure that had opened up in the earth in the middle of the city.

"This can't be a coincidence," I said. "The timing is too perfect for that."

"I know Dante maintained a lab under Central," said Sloth. "Maybe someone activated something she left behind."

"But who else would know about that lab?"

"I don't know. When I went down there shortly after my father started using me as an agent, looking for a Philosopher Stone, the area was abandoned except for Gluttony."

"Gluttony?"

"A cannibalistic homonculus that Dante was using to refine the Stone. Apparently it didn't work. He's been rampaging around down there, without a complete mind, mutating into something less and less human."

"So, monster homonculus that eats people. Good to know that before we go down there."

"If he's still down there, I can't imagine how anyone could get to the labs, let alone march a squad of soldiers through there."

"Could Gluttony be responsible?"

"Homonculi can't use alchemy, remember? Besides, someone destroyed his mind, leaving him with nothing but hunger by messing with his oroboros."

"If Shao knew about him, why didn't he try to co-opt him and make him an agent personality like he was going to do to me and Wrath?"

"Gluttony's mark is on his tongue. Do you think it's a good idea to stick your hand in a monster cannibal's mouth?"

"Point."

"He might not even be down there anymore. Like I said, if anyone's using Dante's old labs, they'd have had to deal with him first."

"Did you know who he was based on, find any remains?"

Sloth shook her head. "My father wasn't even sure if he was based on a human to begin with. I bypassed him using my powers when I went down here."

"If he is still down there, that should still work. If we find more of those soldiers, we already know how to take them down."

"We know we can beat them up," Sloth corrected. "We still don't know how they were even moving, much less how they were disrupting direct alchemy."

"We won't get any answers standing around here," I noted, and hopped a barricade. Sloth passed through it and followed. The crack in the earth was narrow, but it looked passable. I started climbing down.

"Oh, one thing-" Sloth started to say before I lost my footing and started to fall.

The fissure unexpectedly opened up into a massive cavern, and we were climbing in through a crack in the ceiling. I didn't realize in time and fell, only to have my right arm caught by Sloth. She'd anchored herself by phasing her legs halfway into the ceiling and was hanging upside down holding my arm with both hands.

"The cave's pretty big, so watch your step," she finished.

Dangling above, I saw that this cave contained an empty city, like the one I'd seen in Xerxes, but much larger. Maybe even bigger than Central above. And drawn all across it was the array for making a philosopher stone. The implications of this city made what happened to Liore look insignificant.

"How many cities did they destroy for the Stone?" I asked in a low voice.

"I can't really be sure," said Sloth. "I know Dante and Hohenheim discovered how to make the Stone four hundred years ago, but it's hard to say for sure everything they got up to in the meantime. I know at least here, Xerxes, and Liore."

"When the Ishbalans learned about the Philosopher's Stone and it's price, their people collectively turned their backs on alchemy as a whole. That's why they were both keeping to the shadows! People don't just accept murder and genocide on this scale! They had to make sure the only people who knew about it were people they could control, or people as degenerate as they were."

"Or maybe they were afraid someone else would just take the Stone from them the price would still be paid, only the person benefiting wouldn't be them," suggested Sloth.

"It already happened," I said. "The Ishbalans found out somehow. Whether Dante or Hohenheim approached them and explained what was involved, or they figured it out on their own, the reaction wasn't to take the Stone and use it for themselves, or at least those who thought that way were opposed strongly enough for it not to matter. Maybe they saw what happened in Xerxes. After seeing what happened in Liore, I never wanted to see that happen again."

"I guess that makes it doubly important we find out who, if anyone, is down here. Do you have a plan for getting down, or am I going to need to hold you here all day?"

"Right. Sorry." I scanned the area below and picked out our best landing area. "Aim for the water over there."

"At this height, it probably won't make much difference."

"No, but it's composition's predictable enough. I should be able to cushion our fall enough that we can avoid the inconvenience of regenerating broken bones."

"If you say so."

On the plus side, there was plenty of time to get into position as we fell. On the minus side, there was also plenty of time to imagine how much it would hurt if I screwed up the timing. Sloth still clinging to my arm, I impacted the water feet first, and managed to cushion our fall by manipulating the density and surface tension. We came to a stop about halfway to the bottom, when the real flaw in my plan became apparent.

I grew up in a desert, and never learned how to swim. I batted my arms and kicked my legs helplessly for a few moments, then was gripped by an instinctive fear of drowning that forced all logic out of my brain, including the memory that I wasn't human anymore and didn't need to breathe. It wasn't until after I'd sucked in a lungful of water that the fear subsided and I was thinking again.

Sloth was no better off than I was. I'd batted her away in my panic, and apparently she couldn't swim either. She was flailing helplessly a few feet away.

I clapped my hands and froze a sheet of ice beneath us, and we were both carried to the surface. On hands and knees, I choked and vomited, alternating between berating myself for forgetting I didn't need to breathe, and noting with curiosity that our regenerative powers apparently did nothing to clear water out of our lungs. Sloth realized what had happened and grabbed my arm, using her powers to let the water just fall out of my lungs, and I was breathing normally again after one last, desperate gasp.

"That was not your best plan, Greed," she said after it was clear I was alright.

"Tell me about it," I agreed. "We need to learn how to swim."

We looked at one another, soaked and embarrassed for a long moment before I got to my feet, and started walking toward solid ground, transmuting more ice under my feet as I went. Sloth took my hand and dried us with our powers. We were almost presentable by the time we were on the streets with her leading the way to an old theater.

In the study, I was greeted by the sight of broken bookshelves and small piles of ash where the books should have been.

"Your handiwork?" I asked, turning to Sloth.

She shook her head. "They were like that when I got here the first time. I wasn't really looking for books at the time. Maybe something survived that I overlooked when I was searching for the Stone."

"Let me think. If this is the theater Rose told me about-" My train of thought was interrupted by a loud crash.

The roof started to collapse on top of us. Sloth called out, "Greed!" and grabbed hold of my leg in a gesture that someone who didn't know us might mistake for a panicked clinging looking for protection. The truth was she was protecting me. The pieces of ceiling passed harmlessly through our bodies, and with both arms wrapped tightly around my leg, she was able to keep hold as the floor broke apart as well.

Sloth could have certainly guided us out of the rubble, but I sped our escape along by clapping my hands, extending them forward, and deconstructing the wreckage, revealing a path back to open air. Once we stepped out of the solid matter, we caught sight of what caused the collapse.

"Gluttony," Sloth said quietly as my eyes struggled to take in the scale of the creature in front of us. This thing had once been a homonculus like us. Technically it probably still was, but now there were only a few hints it had ever had a human form. Larger than the nearby buildings, it had a half dozen fanged mouths mounted on snakelike protrusions, with a tiny pair of seemingly vestigial legs under each jaw. A more humanoid face with a large nose appeared on what I can only call the main head, mounted between a pair of gigantic arms that reached most of the length of its body and seemed its primary means of locomotion.

"How do you get from one of us to that?" I whispered in horror.

Gluttony sniffed the air, then roared. One of the smaller heads launched itself at us. Feeling my muscles tense in preparation to dodge, Sloth squeezed my leg harder in a restraining action.

"He can't touch us," she said, just before the appendage tried to bite me in half, but closed its mouth harmlessly before crashing into the rubble behind us.

"No way did those soldiers come from down here," I concluded, staring at the monster. "They wouldn't last ten seconds against him."

"And if he's still here, something else caused the synchronized earthquake."

We chatted as Gluttony continued to try to eat us, foiled each time by Sloth's Ultimate Escape.

"I have an idea," I said, "but I'll need to get to a phone to confirm it."

Sloth released my leg and took me by the hand. "This way. She brought us to the edge of the cave where an old, damaged elevator with a large hole in the floor was situated in a shaft leading back up to the surface.

The elevator led into the Fuhrer's office in Central command, but we got off just before reaching the surface, staying underground until we were back in the city proper. Grabbing the nearest phone, I called Easter Headquarters and asked to be connected to the Ishbal outpost. I recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

"Frank?"

"Iron Sole? What are you doing on this line?"

"Don't hang up! I have important information for the General!"

"Tell him through the normal chain. Goodbye."

"There was an earthquake at the Xerxes ruins, right? I blurted out as fast as I could.

I was worried he'd already hung up when the line stayed dead for several seconds. Then came the reply, "Yeah... How did you-?"

"It's part of an invasion," I told him. "The enemy is apparently able to use sites where Philosopher Stones were made to open portals to those locations using some kind of Alchemy. They already attacked Liore."

"Portals?" asked Frank dubiously.

"If I had more answers, I'd give them to you. Enemy troops that came through at Liore were already dead, animated through some kind of human alchemy. They were wearing metal armor and had an unknown resistance to direct alchemy."

"You're nuts."

"Damnit, Frank! This is important! You might be the next ones in the line of fire. Please, just tell the General."

"Why should I believe a word you say, especially something this crazy?"

"Look, Frank. I'm sorry I kept the truth about my research from you. But have I ever lied to you about something that could actually hurt you? Please, even if you don't believe me, just tell the Swarm Alchemist what I said and be ready."

"Oh, I'll tell the General, alright. He can hear just how far off the deep end you've gone." With that, the phone clicked off.

"Didn't sound like that went well," noted Sloth.

"I don't know what else to do," I admitted.

"Do you want to go back to protect Liore?"

I paused at that, then shook my head. "Liore wasn't their objective. They've got even odds of showing up at any of the three sites if I'm understanding this right. Central's probably what they're aiming for, and there are more people who need to be protected here."

"There's also more people to protect them here, Greed."

"Liore's been through worse than these guys."

"There's something else."

"Yeah, Sloth. There is. I don't know how they did any of that. The portal, the alchemy disruption, the reanimation. I know Central's where they'll be aiming."

"And you want to be there next time they show to figure out how. That explains the look on your face."

"What look?"

"You're excited to have a new mystery."

I smiled. "You're right. I am."

"Well, Mr. Big Shot Alchemist, we have no way of knowing when the next attack will happen. How about you get us a room to stay in while we wait?"

"Probably a good idea. Something close to the fissure, though. It'd be a pity if Gluttony ate them all before we could get some answers."

. . .

Author's comments:  
Conqueror of Shamabala makes very little sense even when you're following the Elric Brothers. From an outside prospective, it gets even weirder. I hope you enjoy the ride.


	25. A Quiet Day and a Home Cooked Meal

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 25) A Quiet Day and a Home Cooked Meal  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

The next two days were a waiting game. Sloth took over the desk in the hotel room, eager to try out some of the drawing techniques Armstrong had shown her on the train. I sat on the bed, watching her from behind as she was framed by the soft light pouring in through the window.

After a few minutes just enjoying the view, I reached into my satchel and pulled out a notebook of my own. I started working out array designs and alchemic formulae, glancing up at Sloth, still hard at work, every few minutes. After a couple hours of companionable silence, I put my notes away and got to my feet. Crossing the room, I kissed Sloth on the neck to get her attention.

"I'm going shopping," I reported. "Is there anything you want me to pick up?"

"Shopping?" she blinked in confusion.

"Yes. We don't need to eat and drink," I admitted, "but why deny ourselves the simple pleasures?" I ran my fingertips over her bare shoulders to emphasize my point.

"Pork chops?" she asked, tentatively.

"Can do," I replied, and gave her a light peck on her slowly curling lips.

. . .

I returned half an hour later, carrying a large paper bag. Sloth looked up from her drawings as I withdrew a large sheet of wax paper and unrolled it on a table. I traced a transmutation circle with a grease pen, and piled ingredients into the center.

"Why are you using a circle?" she asked.

"Habit," I admitted. "This is simple enough alchemy to clap transmute, but I've used this array so many times, it'd feel weird cooking without it."

"You were on the road a lot," she noted.

"After I joined the military, yeah. But I got into this habit while I was studying alchemy in Central. I figured alchemy was like any other skill. The only way to get good at it was practice, practice, practice."

"You were using alchemy to cook even when you were at home?" she asked, wrinkling her nose up.

"You saw my shower at the lab. I used alchemy for everything." With that, I activated the array. A wave of blue light passed across the circle, and two steaming hot plates of food appeared with their proper place settings.

Sloth hopped out of her chair and sat down with me. Gripping a utensil in each fist, Sloth said, "It has been a while since I sat down to a meal like this."

"Let me know if you want any changes to the way anything's cooked," I said as she shoveled the first morsel into her mouth.

She she shook her head, swallowed, and said, "Uh-uh. It's good."

"Even if I am a weirdo who does all his cooking with alchemy," I teased and started eating myself.

"I've known you were a weirdo for ages," she teased back. "At least you're a weirdo who can cook."

. . .

Author's comments:  
I originally planned to get straight into the battle of Central at this point, but circumstances prevented me from rewatching my DVDs. Instead, I ended up writing a few quiet domestic scenes, which I think actually help with the pacing.


	26. Romantic Interlude 5

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 26) Romantic Interlude 5  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 27.  
***WARNING***

. . .

After dinner, Sloth showed off some of her drawings. She'd done one of each of our meetings, starting with us walking, hand in hand, through the old Tucker Estate. Her artwork was better than mine would have been, meaning the people in it were recognizable, and I could recognize each scene, but she had a long way to go before she matched Armstrong.

"Putting the drawings in order helps me keep it straight in my head what happened when. It's still confusing sometimes."

I looked at the last drawing on the list. Her hair was half colored black and half colored brown. I was hugging her, and smaller versions of the previous scenes took up all the rest of the page.

"Any regrets?" I asked.

"Tons," she said casually, "but none about that."

Holding up two of the pictures, she asked, "Which do you like better? The brown hair or the black?"

"On you or on me?" I asked with a grin.

"Greed," she said in a tone that was easy to read.

"It's not fair to make me choose. What's the point of having a girlfriend who can change her hair and eye color at will if I don't get to just enjoy the variety? I don't make you choose."

"Fine, fine," she placated in mock annoyance. "How about just for tonight, then?" She gave an enticing smile.

"It's been a while since I got to see the beautiful eyes you had when we first met," I admitted with a smile of my own.

I kissed her as she took her alternate form, but when I felt her only returning my affections, rather than urging me on, I pulled back and looked her in the eye.

"What's wrong?" I asked, reading confusion in her features.

"What do you mean?" she replied. "You're the one who stopped."

"You just... didn't seem like you were into it. We don't have to have sex just because we have a moment's privacy."

"I just... I don't know how much time we'll have together before things pick up again. We might not have another chance for a while."

"Sloth, if things do pick up, we can make time after. One of the advantages of being immortal is there'll always be more time."

"I'm worried if we get out of the habit, it won't matter how long we have."

"That's fair," I admitted. "I don't see myself falling out of love with you because you're not in the mood from time to time, but I'd hate to stop seeing desire in your eyes, whatever color they are."

"So do we...?"

"You've been spoiling me, Sloth. I've gotten used to gleeful enthusiasm from you when we make love."

"What are we going to do?"

"Why don't we just take things a step back and slow down," I suggested. "We can touch and caress, and just be with each other and save the licking and sucking and penetrating until we're both feeling it."

"I'd like that, Greed."

I smiled, touched my fingertips to her cheek, and ran them down the side of her neck. Sloth's dress vanished an instant before it would have blocked my progress. As my hand slid onto her flat chest, Sloth leaned in and melted into a soft kiss against my lips. I felt her tiny hands slide up my chest.

I let out an involuntary gasp as her touch triggered something in my mind. I moved a hand to the back of her head and stroked her hair, nonverbally reassuring her that my momentary tension was in no way a sign I wanted her to stop. When our lips parted, I made eye contact and slid my hands over Sloth's shoulders and down her arms until I was caressing her wrists at the point they passed through my black vest.

"Did I ever tell you I love that you're so casual about using your powers?"

She blushed a little. "Why wouldn't I be?"

I shook my head. "It just makes me happy seeing you so comfortable with your own body. I have a question, though."

"What is it?"

"You need to know what you're passing through to use your powers, just like an alchemist would need to know to perform a transmutation on it, right?"

"I thought you figured that out ages ago."

I continued to run my fingers over Sloth's wrists as I asked, "What's my vest made of?"

"Huh?" she asked, confused at the question.

"The clothes that just sort of appear at will for us homonculi, and vanish into nothing with a thought. Normal matter doesn't operate that way. At least with our changing hair and eyes, equivalent exchange isn't violated, but what are my pants and vest, and your dress made of?"

"I've never really thought about it," she admitted. "It isn't normal matter. It's easier to work with than normal matter, almost like an instinct."

"I wonder, can you undress me?" I asked with a smile.

Sloth took my vest and slid it down my arms. The instant it left contact with my body, it vanished into thin air.

"Amazing. I never thought to try that before," I said, willing the vest to appear on me once again.

"What are you thinking, Greed?"

"I'm not sure. It's easier for you to pass through, but you still need to know it's a piece of homonculus clothing to do it, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And homonculus clothes can vanish without a trace."

"This is about why I couldn't use my powers on those soldiers, isn't it?"

"It's a theory. One we can test in our next fight."

Sloth smirked. "Is this what you were doing all those times between our fights? Wracking your brain to try and figure me out?"

"You were always on my mind," I grinned back. "I hope you're not getting jealous."

"Of your new curiosity? I'll think about getting jealous when one of them turns out to be half as hot as this under the armor," she replied and stretched her arms over her head, showing off her lithe form.

"Good," I said, closing my hands around her writs, then sliding my hands down her arms, feeling the tone of the muscles beneath her skin. "That means I can tell you all about my fights with Psiren."

She blushed slightly, recognizing the compliment as I slowly ran my hands over her shoulders. Sloth squirmed a bit as my palms went past her armpits, but leaned forward to put her arms around the back of my neck as I continued to run my hands down either side of her naked body.

We gently kissed as my hands reached her hips, and moved on to her outer thighs. I suddenly found myself naked and saw Sloth's lips quirk into a smirk.

"How'd you do that?" I asked, feeling up her beautiful round butt.

"The clothes disappear when they lose contact with your body. My powers are all about what gets to touch what." Emphasizing her point, she reached down and ran her fingertips along the length of my erect penis, then leaned it against her stomach.

"I love the way you put that," I said, sliding a finger between her butt cheeks.

Leaning forward, Sloth ran her hands from my shoulders, down my chest and stomach and along my inner thighs, then went back up the way they came. Meanwhile, I slid my hands up her back as she leaned down, and brought them around as she rose up again, until I was teasing her nipples when she got to mine.

I leaned backward on the bed and drew Sloth horizontal with me. Our bodies pressed together for a moment before we separated slightly to see what we were doing with our hands.

We were on our sides facing one another, neither of us sure exactly what we were doing, and both smiling broadly in anticipation of whatever it was. I ran a hand along her stomach, and brought it to a stop between her legs. Sliding my hand up and down each of her inner thighs, I put my other arm around her affectionately. Sloth shuffled down the bed until she was in comfortable reach of my crotch and gripped the shaft with one hand.

Feeling her tiny hand unable to close fully around it, I parted her labia and began teasing her clit. We both let out moans of enjoyment as we began masturbating one another. Our lips were out of reach, but we were far enough apart to look each other in the eye.

I reached orgasm first, most of the semen landing on the bed between us, just one small strand landing on one of her thighs. It was a good thing I climaxed first, because when she came, she lost her grip on my penis. As she writhed in pleasure from my continued attention, she couldn't manage to get her hands back where they were.

Once I was sure she was done, I use the arm I had around her shoulders to pull the panting, trembling, exhausted girl to where I could kiss her. I touched my lips gently to hers between breaths three times. Sloth pressed her naked and spent body against me, and I hugged her tight.

"Let's sleep together, Greed," Sloth suggested. "I want to wake up in your arms."

I kissed her and smiled. "Why deny ourselves the simple pleasures?" Then I closed my eyes and snuggled with her.

"Greed," she began hesitantly.

"Mm-hm," I murmured.

"I also wouldn't object to waking up with your penis in me."

I opened my eyes at that, and saw Sloth's face blushing red. Her blue eyes were fixed on a spot over my shoulder.

"Wouldn't object," I repeated, "or would really like?"

Her face flushed a deeper red as she forced her eyes back to mine and said, "Would really like."

I smiled at her and said, "Then whichever one of us wakes up first should start things off." Then I closed my eyes and snuggled back up against her.

Sloth paused, then kissed me on the lips before wrapping her arms around my neck, hugging me tight, then snuggling with me as we both drifted off.

. . .

I woke first. We were still clinging to one another. Her warm body felt good pressed against me. I ran a hand down her back to grope her butt as I slowly drifted into proper consciousness. Sloth didn't stir except to snuggle a bit closer to me and rub her cheek against mine.

I had to disentangle her arms from around my neck and shoulders before I could even start to figure out how I was going to fulfill my lover's request from the night before. Fortunately, she was sleeping heavily enough that I was able to pry her arms off me, roll her over onto her back, and spread her legs open, with only a few murmurs in her sleep causing me to hold my breath and freeze until she relaxed again.

With one hand on each of her knees, I watched her undeveloped chest rise and fall for a minute, watching until her breathing became even and regular. I appreciated Sloth's young, tight body, and the fact that her regeneration kept returning her to a virginal state, but that presented some challenges in this situation. In all our previous sessions, I'd needed her assistance fitting myself in. I didn't want her to wake up to a painful penetration, so I went slow. Positioning myself between her legs, I took my erect penis in one hand and gently spread her labia with the other.

Fitting us together, I applied just a little bit of pressure. Not enough to force myself fully inside her vagina, but enough to keep us in position without using my hands. Sloth shifted her hips in response without waking up, and I had to shift myself to keep us lined up. I teased her nipple with one hand and stimulated her clit with my other in an attempt to get her lubricating enough to squeeze the head of my penis inside her. It was a risk, trying to arouse her without waking her up, but it paid off when my constant pressure was rewarded with a quarter inch more of the head squeezing inside. I shifted my angle in response and put both hands on Sloth's hips.

I managed to fit the head halfway in when Sloth gasped and her eyes popped wide open. In an instant, her entire body went intangible, and I fell through her onto the bed.

"Sorry," she said as she scrambled around me until we were no longer occupying the same space. "I was surprised, and I panicked."

"This was your idea," I noted, coming to a sitting position.

"I know. When I woke up, I didn't remember right away, and... It was a reflex. I'm sorry."

"Are you okay, now?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Good. Let's stick to having sex when we're both awake for a while before we try that again."

"Okay," she said, her gaze downward in embarrassment.

"Now that you're up," I said, touching her chin and pointing her eyes up to mine, "how about we finish?"

"You still want to? I figured I sort of killed the mood."

"If you're up for it, yeah. You can't expect everything to go perfect all the time."

Sloth suddenly kissed me, and once I got over the surprise, I put my hands on the back of her head and kissed back.

Breaking the kiss, Sloth said, "Okay, let's do this." She positioned herself over my erection, lined everything up with her hand, then put her weight into squeezing my penis inside her. She steadied herself with one hand on my chest and gritted her teeth as she forced herself down."

"Don't hurt yourself," I cautioned. "It's no fun for me if it isn't fun for you."

"I'll be fine," she said. "We don't have to take it slow and gentle every time, do we?" With that, she started bouncing up and down, my penis not quite going deep enough to bump her cervix. Any further objections I might have raised were replaced by a moan of pleasure. Sloth smiled at that and picked up the pace.

I put my hands on her hips, not to guide or control her motion, but to have one more sensation following her enthusiastic bouncing. The tension gradually disappeared from Sloth's features as her own pleasure overwhelmed any remaining pain she might have.

I felt my orgasm approaching, and on one of her downswings, I used the hands on her hips to pull myself deeper in, just bumping her cervix as I started to ejaculate. Sloth continued to buck up and down as my semen poured into her. I came inside her until every new pump of her body forced some of my ejaculate out of her from the back pressure. I let myself expire, and the girl kept riding me until there was nothing left, at which point she settled herself firmly on my lap.

"May not have been what we were planning," I said, "but that was still really good." I bent down an kissed her.

"You forgive me for screwing up our plans?" she asked, smiling after our lips parted.

"There was never anything to forgive," I told her sincerely. "I was just a little frustrated right after falling through you. I got over that before you mounted me."

"I do want to try the wake up sex thing again one day."

"I have to admit, it was kind of fun seeing how far I could get without waking you up. We just need a little more work on the wake up part itself."

"But you were right," she said. "We should probably wait a while before we try that again."

We held each other for a while longer before I clapped my hands, hugged Sloth, and used alchemy to clean us both up for the start of a new day.

. . .

Author's comments:  
The honeymoon phase of the relationship is over. Sometimes you aren't in the mood, sometimes you need to be enticed, and sometimes things don't work out like you planned it. Doesn't mean you stop caring about each other or that you stop putting in effort for one another.


	27. The Invasion of Central

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 27) The Invasion of Central  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Breakfast was a stack of pancakes, fried eggs, and bacon. Sloth may have thought it was weird how used to cooking with alchemy I was, but no one ever complains about perfectly prepared food served in seconds.

"I've been working on something," I said as we finished the cleanup.

"Besides figuring out what's up with the portal and the soldiers?" Sloth asked.

"There's only so much I can do about them until we see them again. I've been working on something else to keep my mind occupied."

"Okay, what?"

I referenced the notes I'd made the previous day, borrowed the desk for a moment, and quickly put together a small device before turning back to Sloth. I held up a modified grease pencil with a rotating cap and an alchemic array running its entire length. A red stone was affixed to the end opposite the lead.

"Take it," I urged her. When she did, I said, "Twist the cap."

Sloth looked at me dubiously and did as I instructed. The patterns on the cap lined up with those on the base, and the array on the pencil glowed red for a split second. Barely visible, the lead had changed color from grey to white.

"Did I do that?" Sloth asked in surprise. "Homonculi can't use alchemy. What happened?"

"You didn't activate the array," I confirmed, overjoyed that it had worked. "It's sort of like Hohenheim's defenses. The red stone provides an energy source without an alchemist needing to be there. I used something similar when I needed to figure out a way to attach my own soul to another body. Twist it again."

Sloth complied, and the array flashed red again as a different set of patterns lined up between the cap and base. The lead was now green. Sloth fiddled with the pencil, passing the lead through a dozen commonly used colors, and back to its starting grey.

"This is amazing," she said.

"I told the Tringam brothers their discovery would change the world," I said, pleased. "The designs for running an array directly off red stones are a little different from how you'd use a stone to just make activating an array easier, like you did for Leo's sword. And you lose a little flexibility, since an array like this is always on when the parts are lined up, and it can only do one thing for a given set of materials, but until the red stone is depleted, it works."

Sloth stared at the device for a moment longer, then went to hand it back to me.

"Keep it," I said. "I made it for you. I know most people don't even bother to study alchemy and they get through life just fine, but it still seemed really unfair you couldn't use it at all."

"That's sweet. Thank you."

A barely perceptible tremor at that moment told us the moment we'd been waiting for had arrived. Sloth clipped her present to her dress, we gave one another a nod, and both of us rushed out the door to the fissure leading to the empty, underground city.

. . .

Sloth and I hung upside down, our legs embedded in the ceiling of the massive cavern. I looked down on the area with a pair of binoculars, and quickly identified what had been the source of the tremor. Wrath and Gluttony were fighting.

"Wrath's down there!" I exclaimed.

"What's he doing here?" asked Sloth, concern in her voice.

"Dying if we don't help him," I declared. "I don't think even we can survive being eaten and processed into a stone."

Sloth let us drop, and I guided our fall as close as I could to the fighting. We hit hard, breaking bones and pulverizing organs, but we both regenerated and were on our feet faster than nay other method of getting down. Sprinting through the empty city, the two of us rounded the last corner and were greeted by a gruesome sight.

Wrath was in the center of a transmutation circle nearly identical to the one Izumi had sacrificed herself in. His automail fist was embedded in the ground, the limb coming apart from the stress being put on it. Gluttony had caught Wrath in the jaws of his primary mouth, and was trying to pull Wrath out of the circle, his teeth cutting deep gouges into Wrath's hips and ribs. Alphonse Elric was gaping in horror at the scene.

"Do it now!" yelled Wrath as we came upon the scene. Before Sloth and I could do or say anything, Al steeled his nerves, clapped his hands, and sacrificed both Wrath and Gluttony.

Above us, the Gate opened in a way unlike I'd ever seen before. Rather than a swinging open double door, a square portal bordered by the same imagery as the other versions of the Gate appeared in the air above us.

"What did you do?" I managed to gasp before a machine belching fire out its back shot out of the Gate like a bullet.

A second machine emerged right after. This one was covered in black, organic growths and was moving slower. The amorphous, black arms of the childlike imps who extracted the toll from alchemists who see the truth beyond tried to hold the aircraft. Struggling only a moment, the second machine broke free of the Gate children and began to pursue the first through the cavern.

"I think we've found the enemy," suggested Sloth quietly as Alphonse ran after the machines.

I sank to my knee. "Why?" I asked no one in particular as tears were welling up in my eyes.

"There was nothing you could have done, Greed," said Sloth putting an arm around my shoulder. "We came as fast as we could. We were just too late. Besides, it looked like they planned this together."

"'Do it now,'" I repeated Wrath's last words. "Why do people keep choosing to die?" My words caught in my throat, ending in a choked sob as I held my head in my hands.

Sloth let me break down for a minute, keeping me aware of her presence with a comforting hand on me as I sobbed out those first, rawest tears of grief. She shook me out of it when the second craft had shot down the first, and was blasting a hole in the ceiling to the surface.

"We have to get up top to help defend the city," she said.

"Right," I said, wiping my face.

. . .

Sloth led the way to a staircase leading back to the surface when it became clear the blast had destroyed the elevator. We emerged in a disused church. Outside, the buildings looked to have been bombed. I caught sight of the airship and watched as a purple transmutation circle drew itself in midair off its wing. Once fully formed, a jagged line of violet alchemic lightning shot from the circle to the city below, crudely deconstructing everything along its path.

"Are these even the same people?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Sloth, "but the timing probably isn't a coincidence."

"I never even thought about using the Gate as a transportation method. If the portal in Liore was a different implementation of the same idea..."

My train of thought was interrupted by screams from outside. Sloth and I ran out, and were immediately shot. Armored figures like those from Liore were marching down the streets of Central. Unlike in Liore, these ones were armed with machine-guns and weren't shy about using them. The bullets passed through Sloth like she wasn't there, but I ended up with a dozen embedded in my torso. Civilians were fleeing in terror. Dozens lay on the ground wounded or dead.

Sloth rushed at the soldiers, covering the distance in the blink of an eye. I stomped a foot and turned their tight formation against them by raising a wall around them using alchemy. Sloth was sealed inside with them, but she could take care of herself. I turned my attention to the civilians.

Anyone who could flee had already done so by this point. There was nothing I could do for those already dead, so I rushed to the side of one of the worst of the wounded. Taking a red stone from my pocket, I closed the worst of the man's wounds with alchemy before moving on to the next one. I let my body's own regeneration push out the bullets in my body as I went.

People were still hurt, but no one in sight was in immediate danger of dying when Sloth stepped through the wall I'd used to contain the soldiers.

"Those are definitely the same guys from Liore. They're way easier to fight when they're using guns."

"Did you manage to take nay of them alive?" I asked.

"As alive as they were when this started," Sloth shrugged.

"Good," I said. "Let's see if we can figure out what makes these guys tick."

I took a step toward the containing wall, and used the array on my show to open an archway as I approached. Beyond were the remnants of Sloths' battle. Guns were broken into their component parts, suits of armor were dented and battered, and some of the soldiers were buried up to their waists. About half of them were still moving, but Sloth had made sure they were all restrained somehow.

Sloth and I approached one of the restrained invaders, and I clapped my hands. Placing my hands on the breastplate, I alchemically broke down the armor, layer by layer, looking for whatever was disrupting Sloth's ability to pass through them. When the armor was fully stripped away, I got my answer.

Black growths covered the body of the soldier. They were seemingly organic in nature, and I could make out facial features scattered among the full body covering.

"What is that?" asked Sloth in a mixture of shock and disgust.

"They came through the Gate," I said. "It almost looks like the opposite of what happens when an alchemist tries to make a homonculus. Rather than take something away, it's like the Gate children grafted parts of themselves on to these soldiers."

"Okay, what are these Gate children made of?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "If I had to guess, I'd say the same sort of quasi-matter manipulated with the Grand Arcanum. Let me try something."

I clapped and pressed my palms against the writing mass of flesh. Blue sparks surged across it, and in an instant, the black mass burst like a popped bubble and evaporated into the air, revealing the human corpse it had been wrapped around.

In response to my success, Sloth approached another soldier and pressed a hand through his armor. She encountered resistance, concentrated for a moment, and pushed her hand all the way through. With her hand still inside, the soldier suddenly stopped moving.

"It's like with our black clothes," said Sloth. "If it's separated from the body, it disappears. An since that's what's animating them, we can stop them."

We nodded to one another as another pair of airships flew out of the fissure. Additional soldiers were dropped out the back of the airships as they passed low to the streets. More panicked screams came in the distance, and Sloth and I took off to help.

. . .

We arrived on the scene to find a group of panicked civilians huddled together behind a collapsed wall as the enemy soldiers advanced. My attention was drawn upward as I raced toward the fighting by an explosion overhead. An alchemist on our side had taken out two of the airships. Unfortunately, the remaining craft was the one containing the enemy alchemist, and another purple transmutation circle traced itself in the air. The attack was aimed at the clustered civilians.

I held my hands together and sprinted toward the civilians. The speed enhancement I got from the red stones in my system combined with the assistance the arrays on my shoes provided let me outrun even Sloth in my desperate attempt to get there in time. Bullets from the soldiers were flying at me, but they weren't leading me enough to account for my superhuman speed.

I leapt to the top of the wall the civilians were using for cover, placing my body between them and the airship's alchemic attack. Thrusting my palms in the ship's direction, I spread the fingers of both hands wide as I released the alchemic reaction I'd prepared. A glowing blue disk of alchemic light appeared between me and the airship as I used my alchemy to hold every air molecule within that disk in place. A more advanced version of the trick that had saved my life all those years ago in Liore, I kept the reaction circulating until the arc of purple energy from the aircraft struck my shield. The two transmutations clashed, and my alchemy won the contest. The purple bolt of energy fizzled out, leaving my luminous blue disk intact.

Sloth, trusting me to handle my part, had charged the soldiers. Each one she touched collapsed as she disrupted the connection between the corpse and the Gate Children using her powers. A few shots were still fired in my direction, and ricocheted off the glowing blue disk of alchemically solidified air I was using to block the airship's attack.

The airship moved on, and I released the transmutation. I hopped down with the huddling civilians, trusting Sloth to handle the soldiers.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked, looking over the dirty, bloodied, and scared faces of the people I was trying to protect.

A mother held up the body of a small boy. "Please, help my son." He'd been shot through the heart, probably one of the first hit by this wave of soldiers. I knew of nothing short of the Philosopher's Stone that could bring the dead back to life.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "Is there anyone else who's been hit?"

The remaining injuries weren't life threatening, so I bandaged what I could using conventional alchemy rather than risk depleting my stock of red stones when more seriously injured people might need them.

Sloth startled the civilians by passing through the barrier being used for cover. "The soldiers in this area are dealt with. It looks like the military's sending in a tank division. Can everyone walk?"

The people got over their surprise at Sloth's abilities quickly and got to their feet.

"Where do we need to get them to?" I asked.

"It looks like the airships have already dropped all their infantry," said Sloth. "Unless more ships come through, the lines forming just north of here are the best bet."  
"You heard the lady," I shouted when they hesitated, "let's go!"

The group set out, and immediately another group of enemy soldiers spotted us from a cross street. I stomped a foot and put a wall between us just in time to keep their gunfire from hitting anyone.

"Sloth." I barked, "you run herd. Make sure everyone stays together. I'll focus on keeping the enemy off us while we move."

She nodded in response and ran to circle around the crowd. That taken care of, I scanned the city looking for other angles the enemy might approach from. One of the civilians approached me after Sloth was out of earshot.

"Why are you treating a four year old like some kind of soldier?" he asked quietly.

Finishing my first scan, I spun to face the man who was glancing worriedly after Sloth.

"We don't have time to get into details," I said loud enough for the rest of the crowd to hear. "One, Sloth is older than she looks due to alchemic experiments she was subjected to. Two, those same experiments make her immune to bullets, so stop worrying about protecting her and let us both focus on protecting you."

I set out and the civilians fell into line. No doubt they'd have questions when this was all over. Good. What Shao did should be known. The fact that we have a way to make someone stop aging and survive gunfire should be known.

Sloth completed her first circuit around the crowd and sidled up next to me as I continued to scan the cityscape.

"That was sweet," she said in a low voice meant only for me," but I'm not older than I look. I was only transmuted two years ago, so technically, I'm younger than I look."

"You've got the original Nina's memories," I noted with a smile, in the same low voice, "so I figure you count as at least six."

Sloth laughed and replied, "I'm sure they'll all be happy to hear that's what you meant by older than she looks."

"If we want to stretch it, we could just use Nina's birthday and say you're eight."

She laughed again and went back to herding the civilians. Twice more, our party encountered enemy soldiers, and twice more, just raising a wall was enough to halt their approach. Eventually, we caught sight of the tanks bearing Amestris' seal being escorted by blue uniformed soldiers of the state military.

"I'm a recently retired State Alchemist," I told the commander as I handed off the civilians to the soldiers. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"The tank division is handling their infantry," said the commander. "The only thing we're having trouble with is that airship."

With that, a column of stone rose out of the ground elsewhere in the city, accompanied by blue sparks of alchemic light. I could make out two figures riding it up toward the airship. The alchemists were temporarily halted by a birage of gunfire, but a balloon bearing Central's standard arrived to support them.

"Looks like the active duty State alchemists have got this one," said the commander. "Let's get you back from the lines with the other civilians."

I continued to watch the battle overhead as I was ushered to the safe zone with the people I'd rescued. I got as far as watching a trio of figures boarding the enemy airship when my attention was drawn to the people, soldiers and civilians, laid out on stretchers in the safe zone. Trusting the military to handle the invasion from here, I pulled out a red stone and set to work saving the people who's injuries would have been fatal without alchemy. Sloth took the role of triage director, looking for the next worst case while I focused my attention on the patient in front of me.

. . .

I was working well into the evening, long after the fighting had ended. A lot of people had died in the attack. More would need automail to be functional again. But Sloth and I had been able to make a difference. I'd exhausted a handful of red stones tending to the injured, and by this point my presence was no longer strictly necessary.

"Greed," called Sloth to get my attention. I looked up and saw that Riza Hawkeye had entered the field hospital I'd been working in. She was dirty and tired looking, and carried a rifle slung on her back.

"You're going by Greed now?" she asked as he approached.

"It's a homonculus tradition," I replied with a shrug, unconcerned at this point who overheard.

"I'm sorry about last time," said Sloth. "We were on the run at the time."

Hawkeye sighed. "I'm not here to talk about that. Your letter explained everything. I'm trying not to hold a grudge."

"Then why are you here?" I asked.

"You've apparently spent most of this battle healing people with those," she indicated the red stone I was holding. "There's someone injured I need you to take a look at."

. . .

Author's comments:  
And now we've officially moved past the point where the first anime series ended, which frees me up a bit. I've been trying to fit everything so far into the gaps in the cannon universe, so now as things move forward, I no longer need to keep my characters away from certain people or places.


	28. The Flame Alchemist and the Future of Amestris

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 28) The Flame Alchemist and the Future of Amestris  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Hawkeye led us down a passageway that opened into the empty underground city. The Gate was gone. So it wasn't just that the enemy had stopped coming through. In a mostly intact building near where the Gate had been, the other members of the conspiracy I'd met after my escape from Lab 5 were standing in a hallway. The blond haired Lieutenant Havok was the first to speak.

"Lieutenant. You managed to find him."

"How is he?" she asked in response, obviously not referring to me.

"Oh, the ... private is doing just fine. Creeping the rest of us the hell out talking to himself, but no worse than he has been. I don't know what did this to him, but whatever it was, it must've been a lot to process."

Hawkeye nodded.

"Hey, you're Sloth, aren't you?" asked the dark haired, bespectacled Feury.

"That's right," she said a bit selfconsciously. "I'm sorry for all the harm I've caused."

"It's just," started the red haired, heavyset Breda, "all we had to go on were Hawkeye and Iron Sole's descriptions. It's sort of weird to think we were being menaced by someone who doesn't quite come up to my waist."

The grey haired Warrant Officer Falman pointed out, "Fullmetal wasn't exactly an imposing presence either."

"Maybe we should just get to the injured man," I suggested.

"Right," said Havok as he opened a door. "He's right in here."

Sloth and I stepped into a small room that'd been converted into a single occupancy hospital room. A lean, dark haired man reclined against the headboard of the bed he was in. Clean white sheets covered his lower body, and a white linen shirt hung loosely on his frame. His eyes were wrapped in freshly changed bandages.

The room was lit by a small brass oil lamp that had been placed on a table next to his bed. Extra bandages and washing basins were up against the farthest wall from him.

"Are you Roy Mustang?" I asked as Havok closed the door behind us. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

The man clapped his hands, and the flame from the oil lamp leapt out of its place and ignited a ring of fire around Sloth and I.

"I am the Flame Alchemist," he responded, "and I have some questions for you."

"This was a trap," I said, taking Sloth by the hand. I knew these people had access to her remains.

"I'd just rather conduct this conversation from a position of strength, instead of a bedridden blind man facing to homonculi. Where we go from here depends on what you have to say."

"I can get us out of here," suggested Sloth. "Not without getting burned, but we can escape."

"So if this is a trap, it's not a very good one," noted Mustang. "Now, what can you tell me about those soldiers?"

"They entered the city through the Gate," I said. "They seem to have somehow merged with the entities inside the Gate, allowing them to keep moving despite the fact that they were dead before the arrived."

"Where did that Gate come from?"

"Alphonse Elric opened it using the Homonculi Wrath and Gluttony as sacrifices. I don't know why."

"He was trying to bring his brother back home," Mustang said.

"You knew?" asked Sloth.

"I met up with Alphonse and Fullmetal during the fighting."

"Edward's back?" I asked.

Mustang shook his head. "Edward and Alphonse went through the Gate to destroy the entrance on the other side and prevent another invasion."

"So, it was all for nothing," I noted, thinking of Wrath.

"They're together now," said Mustang. "That's something." Those words were a comfort to me, even after I realized he was talking about the Elrics.

"Is this why you had us brought here?" I asked after a moment. "For a debriefing?"

"Actually, I wanted to talk about where you got those red stones you were using to treat the injured. Were they left over from Shao's stockpile or are you making them yourself?" Those last words had a hard edge.

"They're not the same kind of stone," I replied, keeping an eye on Mustang's hands. "I made them, but I didn't kill anyone doing it."

That seemed to genuinely surprise him. I went over in my head what I'd said about the process and to whom.

"They're purely chemical," said Sloth, picking up the explanation where I left off. "We use plants to refine and process them. There should be a report in the Central Library. It's called the Tringam Method."

"Tringam?" he asked. "From Xenotime?"

"That's right," I confirmed.

"I should've pushed Ed harder to actually file reports," he said with a sigh. The ring of fire surrounding Sloth and I went out.

"So, we trust each other now?" I asked.

"My principle concern was that you were creating red stones using the method developed by the Crystal Alchemist Tim Marcho, which requires the sacrifice of living humans. If that isn't the case, everything else I've been told about the two of you says we're on the same side."

"I'm glad you feel that way," I said, taking a step forward. "Like I said, we've been wanting to talk to you."

"We have enough red stones to stabilize your homonculus," said Sloth.

"My homonculus?" asked the Flame Alchemist.

"You can transmute without a circle," said Sloth. "You had the closest thing to an expert on the subject brought to you. And you opened by asking about our red stones. It wasn't hard to put together."

"I didn't attempt human alchemy," said Mustang. "I came down here to close the portal the enemy was using to send their troops through. When I approached it, information was forced into my brain, including how to do this." He clapped and caused the lamp's flame to leap toward him and over over his open palm. "Creatures inside ripped out my one good eye before I managed to destroy the portal with alchemy. As to calling you in and asking about the stones, I was kind of hoping you could do something about my eyes."

"I can make you a new body," I offered. "Whole, able to regenerate any future injuries, doesn't need to age, potentially immortal. It's human transmutation, but anything I might try to fix your eyes is human transmutation. Technically what I was doing to help the injured counts."

"And you fuel this new body with red stones made using plants."

"That's right."

"What happens to the remains of my current body?"

"Whatever you'd prefer. You can keep them if you think you might want to die someday, or I could destroy them."

"Let's say I'm interested. What's this going to cost me?"

"The price is pretty high," said Sloth. "We want you to change the world."

"What?" asked Mustang. "Change it how?"

"Have you heard the reports about how many people died in the attack?" I asked.

"My people have tried to keep me informed," he acknowledged.

"Too many," I stated emphatically. "Not one of them had to die."

"There was no way to anticipate an attack like this. I'm good, but I can't prevent every random, unprovoked attack by people we've never heard of."

"No," I acknowledged, "but it is possible to mitigate the risk. If our entire population had gone through the procedure I'm offering you, everyone would've survived the attack. There'd be no permanent loss of life and limb."

"You want me to help you pull off some kind of mass human transmutation?" he demanded with a hard voice.

"I don't want anything done to anyone without their consent," I replied wearily, "but it kills me that people keep choosing to die rather than live because of this damn taboo."

"So what do you want?" he asked.

Sloth stepped forward. "Get to a position of power and influence with our support. Eliminate the law that says we can't make this offer to people, and work to break down the taboo so people will be able to accept the offer on its merits."

Mustang laughed at us. "You've got the wrong man. I gave up any chance to be the Fuhrer when I went after Bradley. The generals won't let it happen."

"So run for election to the assembly," said Sloth. "The position of the Fuhrer has been weakening anyway. Meanwhile, you personally saved the lives of the other members of the assembly and ended the invasion."

"Are we wrong in thinking you're a man who can play politics and move power away from the military and into the hands of the civilian government?"

"I can't promise results quickly," Mustang said after a pause. "It'll take time to establish and consolidate influence there."

"That sounded like a 'yes' to me," I said with a smile. The Flame Alchemist couldn't see my grin, but he returned it anyway.

"Let's get your people in here," suggested Sloth. "They should be informed what we're going to do. I don't think we need you getting shot over a misunderstanding while in the middle of a human transmutation."

. . .

Mustang gave a clipping of hair to each of his subordinates and requested the rest of his remains be destroyed. I could tell some of them were uncomfortable with their leader going through with this, but the man's force of personality kept them from saying anything.

I was getting better at human transmutation. In an out of the way part of this buried city, I opened the Gate again, saw a piece of the limitless knowledge beyond, and built Roy Mustang's new body. After attaching his soul and feeding him red stones, I got the chance to admire my handiwork. Both eyes were present and functional. His oroboros was on the inner side of his left wrist.

The man wasted no time in dressing himself in his blue military uniform. He spared a brief moment to look at his new oroboros mark before putting on a pair of white gloves with transmutation circles drawn on their backs. I followed him into another room where Sloth waited with Mustang's friends and allies.

"Are you still... you?" asked the bespectacled, dark haired Feury when we arrived.

"Good as new," he replied with the enthusiasm everyone seemed to feel after getting their new homonculus body working.

"I'll be the judge of that," stated the blond Lieutenant Havok, holding an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Staring hard at the man, he said, "Alright, Roy, something only the real you would know. We talked about reforms, things you'd change when you were the Fuhrer."

"That's right, Havok," Mustang declared with a mischievous grin, "and we're still going to make it happen. It'll be a hard road, especially from outside the military command structure proper, but mark my words, it will happen. All female officers will be required to wear tiny miniskirts!" Mustang pointed melodramatically at this pronouncement while Havok wrapped his arms around the man's leg in joy.

Sloth and I blinked in unison, staring at the bizarre display.

"Is this goofball really the right guy?" I asked Sloth.

"If it helps, think of it as a password," suggested the red haired Breda.

"If you're done, Sir," said Hawkeye with long suffering annoyance, "have you thought about what we're going to tell people about your recovery?"

"The reports of my injuries were greatly exaggerated," he said as he donned an eyepatch, "and there's no need to mention the old injuries that vanished just yet."

"Hiding it isn't going to help change public opinion," I complained.

"And revealing it immediately in the aftermath of an attack will just make it harder to get the influence to actually produce change. You're the ones who sought me out. You can either trust that I know what I'm doing or not. Besides, while I'm keeping it a secret, you've got leverage over me, right?"

"It's okay, Greed," said Sloth, taking my hand. To Mustang, "What do you need from us?"

"For right now, I need all the information you can get about the attack. People are going to want answers, and it'd be nice if I could provide them. A former State Alchemist ought to be able to give me something I can use analyzing the debris."

"Got it," I acknowledged.

"Meanwhile, keep a low profile. I think I can spin what you've been up to so far, but the more obvious you are, the harder that'll be."

"Right," said Sloth without enthusiasm.

"One more thing," said Mustang as he went to leave, "hand over the remains."

"I deconstructed your old body right after I moved your soul," I said quickly as Mustang's people stared daggers at me.

"Not you. Everyone, hand over Nina Tucker's remains." He left, and his people handed me the blood stained brick fragments one by one, looking slightly embarrassed as they left to follow their commander. Hawkeye was the last. As she put her brick in my hands, she grabbed my wrist and stared me in the eye.

"He's moving with a purpose again, like I haven't seen him since the Fuhrer's mansion. I couldn't be happier to see that. Just know that if I find out you've done anything to him, you'll wish I had your remains."

When Hawkeye left, and Sloth and I were alone, I said, "That was a bit harsh."

Sloth shrugged. "She cares about him. I'd get pretty harsh if someone did anything to you."

I clapped my hands and deconstructed the brick fragments that could be used to end Sloth's life. "Let's get to work analyzing that debris."

. . .

Assuming that the military would be dealing with the material on the surface, we decided to start looking for the wreckage of the first aircraft that had come through the Gate and been shot down in the undercity. Picking our way through the ruined city, it seemed that we weren't the first to locate the crash. Two women were already picking through the wreckage, one of them wearing a blue military uniform.

"How'd they get here so fast?" I asked no one in particular.

I was about to turn around and look for a different pile of debris to comb over when one of the women, dressed in her military uniform, with short brown hair, spotted Sloth and I, and screamed, "Homonculus!"

I let out an exasperated sigh.

Sloth asked, "Who is she, and how does she know about us?"

"Calm down Scheska," came a familiar voice from the other woman, who I now recognized as Winry Rockbell. "I know him." Winry waved us over as Scheska gaped at her in confused horror.

"Winry?" I greeted her. "What are you doing down here?"

"I could ask you the same question. Who is this?" asked Winry.

"My name is Sloth,: she replied with a bow."

Winry froze, her pleasant smile taking on a painful character as her features went rigid.

"They're here to kill us for knowing too much, aren't they?" wailed Scheska.

"No one's killing anyone," I insisted. "Winry, it's a long story, but Sloth's on our side now."

Winry relaxed a little bit, and asked, "Did you ever manage to deal with Shao?"

"I thought so, before these soldiers came through the Gate," I said.

"Wait, what?" asked Sloth. "What do they have to do with him?"

"I'm still working through the details," I admitted, "but he was sent through the Gate. If he ended up where these people came from..."

"I guess that makes this doubly important, then," said Winry.

"What are you doing?" I asked for a second time.

"This machine carried Edward through the Gate," she said. "Him and Al are stuck on the other side now. I'm hoping that if I can figure out how it works and fix it, I can find a way to use it to rescue Ed and Al."

"Didn't all this start with Al trying to bring Ed home?" asked Scheska. "And you want to try it again?"

"Hey," Winry objected. "We learned a lot this time. All we have to do is take what happened here and use what we've learned to get it right next time."

"How were you planning on getting this contraption out of here on your own?" asked Sloth.

Winry looked embarrassed and said, "I guess I hadn't thought that far ahead. Good thing two super strong homonculi showed up to give us a hand."

Sloth and I looked at each other dubiously.

"You're going to conduct a rescue mission through the Gate to God knows where when you couldn't plan far enough ahead to haul out this debris?" I questioned.

"I know where they are," said Winry. "Ed told me all about it when I was getting his new automail installed. Help me and I'll tell you what he told me."

. . .

Sloth and I filled Scheska in on who we were while we helped relocate the debris up to the surface. She calmed down considerably once it became clear we had nothing to do with Dante's faction. Winry directed us to lay out the debris in the abandoned church for inspection.

Per my original plan, I got to work on chemical and metallurgical analysis of the debris. Winry spent her time puzzling out the mechanisms themselves. Scheska provided the services of her photographic memory, serving as a reference library unto herself, without which neither Winry nor I could have worked as quickly or efficiently as we ended up doing. Not having much to contribute in this area, but not wanting to feel left out, Sloth took it on herself to run progress reports on our work to Mustang.

"For military hardware, there are a lot of impurities in both the metal parts and in the fuel," I said after the first hour of work. "It has a lot in common with the materials we were working with in the Ishbal reconstruction. Like they never got a handle on industrial alchemy."

Winry looked up from the arrangement of disassembled parts she was going over and said, "They didn't. According to Edward, alchemy doesn't work on the other side."

"What do you mean, 'doesn't work'?" I asked.

"Apparently you just can't transmute on the other side. That's why Ed and Al are trapped."

"But they opened that portal in Liore," I protested.

"The problem was energy," interjected Scheska. "Somehow they found a way to use Envy as an alternate energy source, but he was destroyed opening the Gate."  
"They must've found a way to tap into the red stones in his body," I mused.

"So if we could bring enough of your red stones to Ed," considered Winry, "we might be able to get them home after all."

"That would still involve successfully navigating the Gate without being crushed by the Gate children or torn limb from limb during transit," I noted. "Then we'd have to find Ed and Al without the red stones falling into the hands of the people who just invaded us and letting them try another invasion."

"Sounds like a real tough puzzle to solve," said Sloth slyly. "And then you'd have to navigate a brand new world where science took a completely different path, where things you treat as common knowledge are completely unknown or vice versa."

I smiled at her in response. "Mustang won't need much more from us once we hand over the research notes, will he?"

"I can't imagine what else he'd need us for," she replied with an excited smile of her own.

. . .

As Sloth predicted, Mustang's election to the assembly was swift and uncontested. Winry managed to have more of the debris than I would have imagined shipped to Risembool where she could continue puzzling out the mechanisms. Sloth and I agreed to meet up with Winry in one year's time.

Meanwhile, the two of us returned to Liore. As part of a plan to demarginalize my home town, Mustang arranged for Liore to hold a pilot program of growing Philosopher's Flowers on an industrial scale. To that end, we were to meet up with the newly christened Seed Alchemist, Russel Tringam.

The first thing I noticed as I stepped off the train was that Russel (who'd shown up to greet us with his brother) wasn't in uniform. Instead, he wore the same civilian clothes he had when I met him in Xenotime. The only clue to his new rank and affiliation was the silver chain of his pocketwatch attached to his belt.

"Well, if it isn't the Iron Sole Alchemist," declared Russel, extending a hand to me as I stepped off the train.

"Good to see you again, Russel," I replied, shaking his hand. "You too, Fletcher." I nodded to Russel's younger brother.

"Where's your dog?" asked Fletcher, angling his head to look into the train behind me.

My smile took on a wistful quality and I said, "A while back, he died trying to protect me from an enemy alchemist."

"Must've been a hell of a fight with how tough that dog was," said Russel. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"It was," chimed in Sloth, drawing the attention of the Tringam brothers for the first time. "Loki managed to take the other alchemist's arm off before he went down."  
"This is Sloth," I said to the brothers. "I meant to say something about her last time we met, but we got distracted with trying to kill each other."

"Is this how you meet all your friends?" asked Sloth.

"Not all of them," I replied after a moment's thought. "But more than is probably healthy."

"It's nice to meet you, Sloth,: said Fletcher extending a hand.

"Greed's told me so much about you," she said, taking his hand. "It's a privilege to finally meet you both."

"Where did you find her?" asked Russel in a low voiced aside. From his tone, he was obviously weirded out by the contrast between Sloth's appearance and her way of speaking.

Smirking mischievously, I responded completely honestly. "Wandering around the abandoned house of a deranged alchemist."

"Come on you two," called Fletcher who'd already started leading Sloth off. "We have to show them the setup."

I ran to catch up, with Russel following only after shaking his head helplessly and accepting he couldn't tell whether I was kidding or not.

Fletcher led the way to a tanker on the same train we'd arrived on. Some of the precursor materials for the Red Water were being loaded into tanker trucks by men wearing thick gloves and facemasks.

"We're transporting the chemicals we need by truck until we can finish installing a pipeline from here to the plant for each chemical," said Fletcher as he handed out safety equipment.

"We make regular inspections while unloading to minimize the risk of a spill that could contaminate the city," added Russel as he waived to the men at work.

Sloth and I were next led through town to a large building on the easternmost edge of the city. Russel flashed his pocketwatch to the military guard and waived the rest of us through. After putting on full body protective suits and passing through a decontamination shower, we were led in to where massive mixing tanks were being overseen by dozens of workers. The room was filled with a red mist dense enough that anyone but a homonculus would be unconscious in seconds and dead in minutes without a suit.

"A qualified alchemist needs to check each tank once an hour to make sure the red water's mixed properly." said Russel. "Now that you're here, we can finally add a third shift."

"We're hoping the stone production will attract other alchemists. Enough show up looking to do research, and a few ought to be willing to hire on here," added Fletcher.

After walking us through the details of checking the large mixing vats, the pair brought us back to the decontamination showers. There weren't enough alchemists on site to use a transmutation circle to break down the contaminants after each shift, so the Tringams had arranged for the water from the showers to be pumped into a greenhouse style setup on the roof where plants purified the runoff.

The red water manufactured here was trucked out farther into the desert, where open air cultivation of Philosopher's Flowers was taking place. Dozens of large plots were set up, and from the looks of it, half of Liore's population was out weeding, tilling, and putting together pipes for the irrigation system.

"We're still waiting for the first crops to reach maturity," said Russel. "We won't start introducing the red water we're stockpiling until then. Once we do, the workers will need to start wearing gloves and masks as a precaution."

"We used alchemy to produce this topsoil and lined the plots with nonporous stone to reduce the risk of contaminating the water table," added Fletcher. "We run a weekly inspection of the town's drinking water to make sure nothing's gone wrong."

"We'll be tending each plot slightly differently," said Russel. "Since this is our first try doing this on a large scale, we want to try a few different methods at once, then apply what we learn to the whole operation."

"You definitely hit the ground running," I said. "You've been here two weeks, and it looks like you've already set up everything you need. When did you find time to sleep?"

"The people here have been a lot of help," said Fletcher as his brother soaked in the praise. "My brother and I meet with the mayor every couple days to go over our needs and expansion plans. She ends up taking care of the details so we've been able to focus on the tasks that need an alchemist."

"The funding the State's been providing hasn't heard either. It's let us compensate for the parts of the operation that aren't up and running yet, and get people trained and working on the parts that are while we wait."

"Mayor?" I asked.

"That would be me," said Rose with a smile as she approached us.

"I should have known," I said. "How have you been?"

"Busy," she replied. "We aren't going to have another attack are we?"

I shook my head. "Their attack on Central used up a lot of resources, and gave them quite a bloody nose. Even if they could replace the rare materials they used to open that portal, they know we can defend ourselves. Besides, Ed and Al are on the other side dealing with the problem."

"Wait, you found out what happened to Edward?" asked Russel. "Is he okay?"

"He ended up trapped on the other side of the portal the soldiers came through," I informed them. "He came through with the invaders to help fight them off, and now he's stuck on the other side again, only with his brother this time."

"We're working on a plan to get them home," added Sloth, "but it depends on what we're doing here being a success."

"I guess we'll just need to make sure it is," declared Rose. Russel and Fletcher nodded in agreement.

. . .

Author's comments:  
With Mustang back in politics and pushing reforms, and Liore fast becoming a vital strategic resource in its own right, the world is finally moving in the right direction. So our heroes set their sights on the next world, and bringing the Elric Brothers home.


	29. Romantic Interlude 6

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 29) Romantic Interlude 6  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 30.  
***WARNING***

. . .

It wasn't close to the budget I had as a State Alchemist, but doing my part on this project paid well enough for Sloth and I to stay in a small house near the plant. It didn't hurt that we were less concerned about an accident than humans would have to be. We carried a load of scrap wood and discarded rags into the house at the end of our first day of work.

"It's nice being able to supervise instead of doing all the work ourselves," said Sloth as she dropped her armload on the floor.

"You should have been there in Ishbal before we got it together," I replied as I clapped my hands and transmuted the pile of garbage into furniture.

"I saw some of that," she acknowledged. "Too bad about all the questions it'd raise if you tried to work with your shirt off here."

"That would set a bad example for the humans," I said with a grin.

Bending over, I scooped Sloth up in my arms and kissed her, slipping my tongue between her lips. One hand supporting her by the butt, the other on her back near the oroboros mark on her shoulder blade, I pulled her against me. Sloth responded by wrapping one arm around the back of my neck and stroking the hair on the back of my head as she slid her tongue along mine and back into my mouth.

Our clothes vanished as we kissed. Her smooth, warm skin felt good as she pressed her body against my bare chest. I tumbled over to the newly transmuted bed, barely able to stand, let alone walk, as my attention was consumed by the beautiful child in my arms. I leaned backward and tumbled onto the bed while keeping Sloth held against me.

Once I no longer had to support her weight to keep our lips lined up, I squeezed her butt and ran my other hand up and down her back. In response, she shifted her legs and used them to pull herself farther up my body, until our kiss had to break, but I could now start sucking on her nipples. She leaned backward and moaned pleasurably as she put both hands on the back of my head and urged me to continue.

I kept groping her butt and her thighs as I used my other hand to guide Sloth's positioning as I continued to kiss my way back and forth across her flat chest, stopping to suckle on each nipple for a few moments before kissing my way back the other way. After a few minutes of that, I pressed upward with the hand on her butt, and she obligingly climbed farther up.

I kissed and licked my way down her stomach until she brought her legs up over my shoulders. Sloth held onto my hair to steady herself as she sat upright, straddling my face. I continued to grope her butt and thighs as I teased at her clit with my tongue. Sloth ground her crotch against me and let out periodic gasps of pleasure. I pressed my tongue into her tiny, tight vagina, and pulled it back out again to swallow some of her juices.

Over and over I repeated. Tease the clit, probe her interior, pull back to swallow, with small variations. When she finally called out with her orgasm, I kept up the pace, swallowing almost half the fluid she was ejaculating. Her grip on my hair became unnaturally strong as she came, but I didn't mind a little hair pulling as I kept her orgasm going for a few minutes more.

Finally spent, Sloth rolled off me and onto her back, breathing heavily, but otherwise relaxed. The small child's crotch continued to glisten with the mix of my saliva and her sexual fluids. I wiped the same off my chin and licked my fingers while smiling down at her.

I let her enjoy the afterglow of her orgasm for a few minutes as I watched her tiny body and grew more and more aroused, until it was starting to become painful. Then I said, "How about I come inside you now?"

Sloth smiled, steadied her breathing, then opened her legs and used the tiny fingers on her left hand to spread her labia. "I was hoping you'd ask," she said enticingly.  
As I positioned myself over her, I said, "I'm pretty close already. Don't phase me through the back this time, okay?"

She nodded, and I slowly pushed the head of my penis inside her tight vagina. Her fingers that were holding her labia apart pushed against my penis as I went. Once the head of my penis had successfully disappeared inside Sloth's tiny body, I turned my head up and started navigating by feel again.

Sloth moved her hands onto my hips as I began to rock back and forth, penetrating deeper into her. I reached down and brought one of her hands up to my lips and kissed her fingers as I resumed my rhythmic thrusting. Sloth groaned in pleasure at what I was doing.

I was right about being close to climax. I'd just barely reached Sloth's full depth when my orgasm struck and I began releasing spurts of semen into her.

"Don't stop," she gasped. "Keep cumming until you can't fit anymore in me! Fill me up!"

How could I turn down a request like that? Using my red stone fueled regenerative abilities, I topped off my fluid levels each time it seemed like I was flagging. Sloth's own orgasm came a few moments later, in response to my continued thrusts and the slowly building pressure inside her. We came together for what might've been an hour. Her vaginal contractions felt very good as my penis continued to pump semen into her prepubescent body.

At length, the back pressure reached a certain level, and I pulled my penis out of her, still spurting semen onto her naked body as I went. I let myself finish, emptying the last of my ejaculate on Sloth's slightly distended belly. Her own orgasm pushed some of my pressurized semen out of her vagina in time with the contractions. Finished, we both collapsed side-by-side, breathing hard from the exertion and enjoyed the afterglow together.

"I think I'm going to like you working regular hours," she said with a smile on her flushed face.

"There are definitely advantages," I agreed. Then I kissed her lips tenderly. "Things should only get better once we have a chance to settle in."

. . .

Author's comments:  
Now that there's no looming threat on the horizon, and a chance to have a stable life for the time being, Sloth and Greed can finally relax and start to build an almost normal life together.


	30. The Final Preparations

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 30) The Final Preparations  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

For the next six months, our contributions helped the project produce hundreds of high quality red stones per day. I managed to convince Russel to let me handle disposing of the smaller, lower quality stones that invariably came out of the process due to less than perfect quality control. Not as useful as alchemy amplifiers, thy still made for perfectly serviceable homonculus food.

With the process becoming more streamlined, and the output increasing proportionately, I went to talk to Rose. She was maintaining an office near the rebuilt church.

"Marcus, come in," she said from behind a desk piled high with shipping manifests, status reports, employee records, and other paperwork that made all this possible.

I smiled. "I know we haven't had much chance to talk since Risembool. I'm going by Greed these days. A show of solidarity with my fellow homonculi." I tapped the oroboros mark on my chest.

She looked a little uncomfortable. Given what Dante had put her through, it was understandable. But she just asked, "What can I do for you... Greed?"

"What I'm going to say, I need to ask you to keep private."

"Of course."

"We've been producing red stones a lot faster than we can sell them, and we've built up quite a stockpile. Do you remember when I mentioned a plan to rescue Edward and Alphonse?"

"You need the stones to do it," she guessed.

"Yes, but it's a bit more complicated than that. I need to do some experiments with opening the Gate in order to answer some lingering questions about navigating it safely. I could find a baby and use Dante's method, but if I'm going to be opening the Gate anyway, I figure we should get something tangible for the effort."

"What are you saying?"

"I'd like to perform a series of human transmutations, giving volunteers homonculus bodies like the one I have. We'd have to keep it a secret until Mustang's lobbying at the assembly pays off."

"I don't want to provoke the military," Rose said after a long pause. "If we give them a reason, they'll finish what they started, decent people in the command structure be damned."

"I understand."

"On the other hand," she continued with a small smile, "if they did try something like that again, it couldn't hurt to have more than one unkillable, super powered fighter on our side."

"Ideally, I'd like to see the whole adult population converted over time, but for now, we should probably focus on the sick, the crippled, and the dying."

"I'll start feeling out potential volunteers. If we're going to do this behind the military's back, we'll need to be careful about who we tell."

I gave a sigh of relief. "Out in the rest of the country, human transmutation is something people thing of as worse than murder. Yeah, most of the people out there doing the research are unethical psychopaths, but I think that's more a reflection of culture that says this is something only an unethical psychopath would be involved with. I've met good people eaten up by guilt because they think they're monsters for breaking the taboo. It's good to be back in a place without that baggage."

. . .

It had taken Rose a month to fully vet our first homonculus candidates, between the sensitive nature of our plan and her other administrative responsibilities. They were brought out into the desert, away from town, under cover of darkness. Sloth and I were waiting. I'd prepared a stone slab with the human transmutation array etched into it. Raw materials for the new bodies and a lot of red stones were set off to the side.

Most of the candidates had been injured fighting the military before Scar's plan to turn the invading soldiers into a Philosopher Stone had been implemented. Some were missing limbs, some eyes, and others struggling with internal injuries.

"Cornello lied to us," I declared. "His false promises of immortality were a manipulation to get us to fight and die for him."

Sloth handed me a blade, and I used it to cut off my own left hand. After the things I'd experienced, the pain seemed relatively minor, and it would help emphasize my point. I held up the stump so they could watch blue lightning dance through thin air and recreate the bones of my outstretched hand. Then another wave of alchemic light showed the muscle and tendons layered over it. After a final wave restored skin and nails, I closed and opened a fist and wiggled my fingers for emphasis.

"This isn't magic," I told them. "This isn't a miracle. This isn't sorcery or devilry. The alchemy I used to create this body is a science, something every one of you can learn to use yourselves. Tonight, any of you who are still interested will be given new bodies like mine, immune to aging, deprivation, and disease, able to regenerate from even fatal injuries in seconds so long as you've consumed enough red stones."

To emphasize, Sloth took one of the stones, which these people all knew were made from a toxic slurry of materials and bit down on it, crunching it loudly before swallowing.

"I'm not Cornello. I'm not going to ask you to fight a war for me. Frankly, I'd rather keep the peace with the rest of the country. All I ask is that you keep this a secret until revealing what we've done here tonight no longer puts Liore at risk."

They were all committed. Rose had done her job well. What I'd shown them made it real, but they'd arrived ready to accept those terms. I gave them a few minutes before asking who was first.

With Sloth at my side and the remaining volunteers bunkered down some distance away, I locked eyes with my lover, we nodded to one another, then I clapped my hands and started the human transmutation. Alchemic light swirled and surged, and the two of us waited tensely for the Gate to open.

We were still together when we found ourselves before those massive double doors. As the doors began to swing open, I silently reminded myself how important it was that I remain aware of my surroundings, that I not let myself be distracted by the knowledge that would force itself before my mind's eye while the Gate Children tore at our bodies. It was easier said than done.

It didn't matter which way I looked once the Gate opened, since the information was being forced into my mind directly. I couldn't black the images out, but with effort, I could focus somewhat on my physical senses and see where the amorphous black creatures latched on to my body. One was digging into my abdomen. I clapped my hands, focused my mind as much as I could, and touched the creature, deconstructing it before it could make off my organs.

Sloth was faring worse. Her left arm and leg had already been torn off, and from her fixed stare, she hadn't noticed yet. I pushed myself towards her, clapped, and broke down the creatures that were still tearing at her body.

The shadowy hands retreated back inside the Gate, the doors swung shut, and I found myself holding Sloth's mutilated body in my arms. The newborn homonculus struggled to breathe nearby.

"That," Sloth said, regenerating her lost limbs, "was a rush."

"Besides what the Gate showed us," I declared as I set to work attaching a soul to the new homonculus and feeding it red stones, "we've also learned it's possible to fight off the Gate Children."

Looking at her freshly regenerated arm, Sloth said, "We'll need to do a better job than that if we're going to escort Ed, Al, and Winry through."

"We've got more chances to practice tonight," I reminded her, gesturing to where the other volunteers were hiding.

. . .

When the human transmutations were complete, and the volunteers were mulling about, getting a feel for their new, whole bodies, I addressed them one more time.

"Now comes the hard part," I told them. Their attention turned to me. "You're all potentially immortal now, but your friends and loved ones aren't. Yet. If the military gets one whiff of what we've done, they'll come down on us harder than they did before. You'll all survive, but everyone else..."

"That's why those of you who had visible injuries are going to need to make an additional sacrifice," said Sloth, picking up where I left off. It may have been the right call, but I didn't have it in me to ask this of them. Sloth spared me having to. In a matter of fact tone, she explained, "Those of you who were missing eyes can just keep wearing patches for now. Those with internal injuries just need to avoid obviously rousing suspicion about your recoveries. Anyone who was missing a limb, though, is going to have to have it amputated again and avoid regenerating it until we're done hiding."

"This isn't forever," I hastened to add. "Work is being done to lobby the assembly to change the rules, and even if that fails, we should eventually be able to convert enough of the population over time that we can openly reveal what we've done and there'll be nothing they can do about it."

They didn't like it. They grumbled. They asked for a few minutes with their new limbs, but eventually, they all came forward and I removed the limbs in question as painlessly as I knew how using alchemy. Then, together, we all snuck back into Liore before we could be missed.

. . .

When the agreed upon day came, I left a stack of notebooks and paperwork with Rose, so that the work we were doing could continue without me. They contained everything I'd learned about human transmutation.

Sloth and I each carried a suitcase full of red stones with us on the train to Risembool. Sloth was using hers as a makeshift desk, and happily drew pictures using her red stone powered pen to pass the time. I watched her draw contentedly for a few hours before broaching a subject I'd been avoiding.

"After we get to Risembool, we're going to need to make a trip up to the mountains."

She looked up from her drawing, a scene of the farm work portion of the red stone manufacturing process, with me, herself, Rose, Russel, and Fletcher all identifiable in the scene. "Hohenheim's hidden lab?" she asked.

"We might find Shao on the other side," I declared. "If we do, having some remains would be a good idea."

After a quiet moment, Sloth said, "I really thought it was over at Yok Island. I may not've been happy about how it all turned out, but at least it was over and I could move on."

"I can head up alone if you don't feel up to it," I offered. "You can explain everything we've figured out to Winry. I just need to be ready in case."

"Okay," she said somberly, stared into space for a moment, then turned a page and started another drawing. After a few minutes, and with Shao's bespectacled face taking shape on the paper, Sloth added, "Are you sure the remains are still there?"

"No," I admitted, "but I am sure he didn't take them. After turning himself into a homonculus, he wouldn't have been able to touch them. I figure me or Wrath would've been sent to retrieve them after he mind-wiped us."

Sloth added the faces of a little girl with brown braids, a friendly looking white dog, and a short haired woman I had to assume was Nina's mother, who'd been turned into a malformed chimera by Shao and let herself starve to death to escape the chronic pain the transformation had caused her. After a few more minutes of drawing, Sloth said, "Greed?"

"Yeah?"

"If we do find my father alive, promise you won't let him touch me."

"I promise I won't ever let him hurt you again. No matter what happens, I'll protect you."

Sloth smiled wanly and nestled up against my side before turning her page and starting on a new picture. I put an arm around her shoulder and watched as the new picture turned out not to be a memory, but instead a dream of something that could never be. In the picture, Sloth wore her dark haired homonculus form and rode through a field of flowers on the back of a green scaled, golden maned chimera.

. . .

When Sloth and I approached the Rockbell residence, we encountered a yard filled with machines of various sorts. I recognized the aircraft Edward had flown in on, rebuilt and heavily modified. The machine-guns I likewise understood fairly easily. Other items, I couldn't make heads or tails of, but which I assumed had been salvaged from the downed aircraft were among them, laid out in no particular order.

The door was answered by a little old woman I'd met on my previous trip here named Pinako Rockbell. She looked Sloth and I over, then called upstairs, "Winry! We have visitors!"

The blonde mechanic came down the stairs, stretching her arm as though she'd been called down from either a mechanical project or a nap. It was impossible to tell which. On sighting us, her face lit up. "Are we ready to mount the rescue?" she asked.

I nodded. "Sloth'll stay here and fill you in on the plan. I need to make a trip to pick up one last thing." Turning to Sloth, I added, "I'll see you soon," and knelt down to kiss her goodbye before I headed off to Hohenheim's lab.

. . .

This time, when I reached the foot of the mountain, I was comfortable with my homonculus body's capabilities. So, rather than climbing, I crouched down at the base and firmly planted my feet. As I did so, a deep crater formed with me at its center. I jumped and transmuted the compacted earth back to its original state, launching myself upward high enough to kill a human from the fall. In fact, were it not for my superhuman durability, my legs would've been broken by the process.

The initial jump brought me level with the ledge containing Hohenheim's lab, but since I had jumped straight up, I wouldn't land there. Curling my legs beneath me, I used the arrays on the soles of my shoes to perform a variant of the alchemy I had used in Central. A pair of glowing blue discs of air molecules held perfectly stationary with alchemy appeared under my feet. Pushing off them like a platform, I managed to jump the rest of the way to the ledge.

My excitement at having successfully managed that feat for the first time was tempered into something more somber as I surveyed the battlefield where Loki had lost his life. Most of Loki's deconstructed remains had rotted away in the year since it had happened, but a slightly darkened patch of soil still marked the spot where it had happened. It didn't take me long to spot what I'd come here for.

I crossed the ledge at a brisk pace and dropped to one knee in front of an inhuman limb. Most of the flesh had decayed, leaving it an almost skeletal mass of bones, save for a few remaining tendons that let it hold its shape.

"Well, boy," I said as I gathered up the remains of the arm, "it looks like what you did wasn't for nothing after all. I can bring this to the other world and finish him thanks to you."

I smiled faintly at the bittersweet memory of Loki attacking Shao Tucker and severing this arm. The attack had cost him his life, and Shao had become a homonculus shortly after. It had all seemed so pointless at the time.

With the remains bundled up in my satchel, I walked to the edge and hopped off the mountain, forming small discs of solidified air to land on every few feet, each lasting just long enough to stop my fall, then giving way and letting me drop down again. When I lightly landed back on solid ground, I started back to the Rockbells'.

. . .

Winry, Sloth, and Pinako were waiting on the porch when I arrived back from my trip. Sloth got up and ran to me the moment I came into view, leaping at the last moment I caught her in my arms and squeezed her tight against me.

"I missed you," she said when I relaxed my hold and put an arm under her butt to make it easier to hold her up as long as she wanted to be held.

"It's only been a few days," I noted.

"Five," she said petulantly.

I kissed her and hugged her again as I resumed walking towards the house. "I'm glad to see you too," I said. "Is everything ready over here?"

Sloth nodded. "Winry has some things to show you that'll help out on the other side."

"Good to know we weren't the only ones working on this."

Winry rose to her feet from the porch swing she was seated at and bobbed a bow as we approached. Pinako was already standing and emptied her pipe off the railing before sticking it back in her mouth. Her expression was stern.

"Now that I've got you both here," started Pinako, "I want you to answer something for me. Why are you doing this? Winry I understand. She's known Ed and Al her whole life. What's this about for you two?"

I'd spent the last year in preparation for this expedition beyond the Gate, yet I wasn't ready for the old woman's question. A lot of this was about pure research for me. Discovery. Going places no one had been and learning things no one had learned. On another level, it was about rescuing one of my idols. Edward Elric had put me on the path to becoming an alchemist in the first place, and being able to help him, it felt unthinkable not to. Plus there was the potentially unfinished business with Shao. As long as I lived, I'd never be able to forgive him for what he did to Sloth, and the original Nina before her.

Sloth spoke up while I tried to gather my thoughts. "Why can't it just be that we don't like the idea of people who love each other separated?"

Winry blushed as I smiled at Sloth. I turned to Pinako and said, "Whatever else any of us may hope to find there, I promise our top priority is getting everyone home safely."

Pinako frowned and said, "I obviously can't talk any of you out of this." Her frown turned into a smile as she continued. "You're all as stubborn as those boys were. You just remember I'm holding you to that promise."

"I understand," I acknowledged. To Winry, I asked, "Are you ready?"

. . .

Author's comments:  
It may not seem like it, but this entire story has been building up to this adventure through the Gate to reunite Ed, Al, and Winry, and face the challenges of the other world.


	31. The First Day in a New World

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 31) The First Day in a New World  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

It was evening when all of our preparations were complete. All three of us wore large backpacks loaded with red stones. We had no way of knowing how much power it would take to open the Gate on the other side, and it was entirely possible we'd lose some transitioning through the Gate. Pinako was holding a newborn baby boy that a neighbor had let her babysit. I'd drawn Dante's transmutation circle on his belly. Winry had recovered, reloaded, and refurbished three pistols from the wreckage of the airships in Central, and each of us wore a holster at our hip.

"Last chance to back out," I declared. "Once we do this, we leave this entire world behind, and face the unknown on the other side. Is everyone sure?"

Winry gave a determined nod. Sloth smiled and bobbed her head. Pinako looked on somewhat disapprovingly, but resigned. I nodded an acknowledgement and touched the transmutation circle on the baby's belly.

Blue light poured off the array, and Pinako prepared to run with the child like we had practiced. Winry, Sloth, and I focused on the looming Gate we found ourselves before.

"This is what they saw that night," whispered Winry with a tremble in her voice that could have been either fear or sorrow.

The massive carved double doors swung open, and as the knowledge of the universe poured through me, I saw the tentacle-like arms of the Gate Children reaching out for us. Winry was, for the moment, overwhelmed by the novelty of the experience, and just stared straight ahead. Sloth and I each gripped one of her arms and jumped into the hungry mass of inhuman arms.

Sloth used her powers to keep them from getting a grip on us as we passed beyond the initial cluster of black humanoid creatures that gathered as the Gate opened. That didn't make them harmless. Even if they couldn't get a solid hold on us, they had the ability to break our bodies down with alchemy on touching us with their palms, and Sloth couldn't prevent that.

So, the only defense was a good offense. Sloth slashed one arm like a knife, severing the tentacle-like limbs from their host bodies when they approached from her side. New limbs grew back as the originals vanished like popped soap bubbles. I launched licks at anything that came near, deconstructing the creatures using the arrays on my soles. Both of us kept a tight grip on Winry, who was starting to perceive her body again through the rush of knowledge all three of us were experiencing.

The Gate swung closed behind us. In time, the creatures withdrew. The smothering mass of darkness gave way to an endless vista of light in all directions. The three of us pressed forward, the omniscience still flooding our minds granting us the insight needed to navigate this intensely alien landscape.

Ahead, there was another Gate. Another knot of the shadowy creatures reached out for us as we approached. I put Wonry's arms around my waist and faced the heavy stone double doors as Sloth fought off the creatures coming for us. I clapped my hands and placed on on each of the double doors. With tremendous physical and alchemic effort, I forced it opened. The three of us tumbled through and landed in a heap. The tentacle-like arms withdrew and the Gate swung shut.  
We were on the other side.

. . .

As the three of us started to untangle ourselves, a voice called out in a language none of us had ever heard before, but which we'd learned as a side effect of passing through the Gate.

"How did you get in here?"

The speaker was standing in a stairwell holding a pistol in front of him. He was dressed in a grey military uniform. He quickly noticed the firearms we wre carrying and trained his own weapon on us.

"So, the resistance is sending women and children to fight their battles now," he said with amusement. "Reach for a weapon and you're dead. Now, on your feet."

Winry was still human, and I wasn't particularly interested in testing out if my immortality and regeneration were intact in this world. The three of us stood and kept our hands visible. More out of habit than any expectation of success, I activated the transmutation circle on the sole of my shoe as I came fully upright. Either we'd ended up in the wrong world, the reports of alchemy being impossible here were exaggerated, or the backpack of red stones I was wearing made the difference. Either way, arcs of blue lightning surged through the floor, and the part he was standing on collapsed beneath him.

Sloth was already bolting for a nearby window before the soldier crashed into the floor below. "This way! Let's go!" she called Winry and I.

The window opened on a narrow street. From our vantage point, we were on the third story. Sloth exited first, phasing her fingers partway through the brick as she scurried down to ground level. Winry tried to climb after, but lost her grip shortly after getting below the window sill. Sloth caught her and hurried her to her feet as I humped down, landed on my feet, and cushioned the impact slightly with alchemy. Then the three of us took off at a dead run through the streets of this foreign city.

. . .

Once we were confident we were no longer being pursued, we stopped in an empty alley to regroup and catch our breath.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked.

Winry and Sloth both nodded.

"That didn't look like the same uniform the soldiers that attacked Central were wearing," said Winry. "And your alchemy worked. Are we in the right place?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted and slung the backpack of red stones I was wearing onto the ground. I dug through it for a bit before finding what I was looking for. "Looks like we're probably in the right world," I concluded as I held a small handful of red stones out to Winry. They lacked the slight glow of the other stones in the pack, and were soft enough to crumble to powder in a person's hand.

"The plan was to bring these stones to power enough alchemy to open the Gate when we find Ed and Al," Sloth reminded Winry. "Looks like we'll need to be a lot more careful using alchemy until then. That little bit of alchemy used up more than we were expecting."

On a hunch, I reached into Sloth's backpack and dug out a number of burnt out red stones. "Looks like your powers use them up here too. We could be in trouble if we can't find Ed and Al quickly."

"We won't get anywhere if we keep drawing attention," declared Winry. "Hide the weapons."

"Without alchemy, we'll need those readily available if we're attacked," I argued.

"You heard what the soldier said," countered Winry. "We showed up in the middle of some kind of occupation. He mistook us for resistance fighters because we were armed."

"She's right, Greed," said Sloth, unstrapping her holster and stowing it among the red stones in her backpack. "It means being a little more vulnerable, but no one's going to help us find Ed and Al if they think we're the enemy."

"Fine," I conceded. "We'll try to blend in."

"If there's an occupation going on, the excuse that we're travelers probably won't cut it for explaining why we don't know certain things," said Sloth. "I'll ask the really obvious questions. Looking like a four year old should be all the excuse I need."

"Good call," I acknowledged. "Winry and I'll follow your lead."

"Once we get a handle on the basic situation, I found an insignia from the invasion force we can look up and have a place to start looking for Ed and Al," added Winry.

Our plan sorted out, the three of us stepped out onto the street and started casually strolling. More eyes were drawn to us than I was expecting. I was about to suggest Sloth ask someone about it when she took off at a run toward a couple who'd been watching us from the other side of the street. Winry and I ran after her.

"Why awe you wooking at us funny?" Sloth demanded of the couple, invoking Nina's speech impediment and looking gravely offended.

"I'm sorry, we don't mean to stare," said the woman to Winry as we caught up and took Sloth by either hand.

"Are you trying to get yourselves killed?" asked the man, much less kindly. Jamming a finger into my chest, he continued, "Bad enough you're walking the streets in this part of town, but you're risking your wife and the mulatto girl bringing them along."

"You really should be more discrete," added the woman. "If the soldiers catch sight, they'll make an example."

Suddenly, the two stiffened and briskly walked away. A pair of uniformed soldiers had rounded a corner. Spotting us, they ordered us to stay where we were and started unholstering pistols. Instead, we ran into a nearby building, which turned out to be a cafe.

"You can't hide in here!" exclaimed one of the workers in a panic.

Sloth led the way to a side window with Winry right behind and me keeping an eye on the soldiers from the rear. A gunshot rang out and Winry's body stiffened. It was a moment before I realized I'd been the one shot. Sloth scrambled out the window and I shoved Winry after as two more bullets flew in our general direction.

Since the bullet in my back didn't seem to be impeding my motion, I resisted the reflex to heal the wound and potentially use up more red stones. Once I was out the window, Sloth and I had to half-carry Winry for a few steps before her legs started working again after the shock of being shot at. When we finally stopped running after finding another alley to hide in, I dropped my backpack to assess the damage.

"Are Edward and Alphonse even alive anymore?" asked Winry, nearly sobbing. "We've been in this world less than a day and targeted twice."

"This wouldn't be the first time they've been in a war zone," I declared. "Liore was much worse than this toward the end." At which point, I coughed up some blood.

"You were hit," said Winry, suddenly much calmer. "Take off your shirt and let me take a look."

I complied as Sloth took Winry's backpack and moved into position to watch the alley's entrance.

"It's a good thing you homoncluli are durable. You ran three miles with a bullet lodged in your left lung. Doesn't that hurt?" she asked as she confirmed the lack of an exit wound.

"Sort of," I replied. "I did have automail installed once, so this is sort of a bee sting by comparison. Then there was the whole 'putting by body back together' experience after the human transmutation. Let's just say I've had worse."

"Can you regenerate it?" she asked.

"You probably shouldn't," declared Sloth. Pulling a few dead stones out of my pack, she said, "We already lost a few more running away."

"But I didn't use alchemy running... My shoes!" I shifted my position to look at the soles of my feet and observed the transmutation circles I'd originally applied to improve traction and stability on uneven ground. They were using up red stones with every step. I grabbed a cobblestone and defaced the arrays.

"We probably should've planned this better," noted Sloth in a deadpan.

"Hold still!" ordered Winry as she grabbed me by the back of my head and forced me down on the pavement. "If you're not going to just regenerate that, then I need to get that bullet out and patch the hole. Even if you feel fine, you're bleeding, and that's not going to make people less suspicious."

"You two take care of that," said Sloth. "I'll head out and gather more information. I think I'll have better luck on my own."

"Sloth-" I started to say before getting pushed back to the ground.

"I said, 'don't move'," emphasized Winry.

"I'll be fine, Greed," said Sloth. Then she darted out of the alley and around a corner.

As Winry shoved a pair of pliers from her pack into my bullet wound, she asked, "So, how exactly did you two end up on the same side? First time you showed up in Risembool, she'd been trying to kill you."

"She was having her memories tampered with by her father, who was using her as a weapon. I managed to remove the blocks and she ran away with me."

"And you've been together ever since," finished Winry as she pulled out the bullet and started packing the wound.

"I think the longest we've been apart since then was when I left her with you to head up the mountain," I confirmed.

"Do homonculi get infections?" asked Winry as she poured some alcohol into the bullet hole.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Ordinarily, I'd expect the regeneration to sort that out, but here, or after running out of red stones, I couldn't say."

"We'll keep an eye on it just in case." She proceeded to stitch the wound closed with a needle and thread.

"Automail techs need to be both master mechanics and master surgeons to do what they do, don't they?" I said as Winry finished up.

"I'm more than just a pretty face, you know," she teased, "and with your abilities out of action, it looks like I'll be doing the heavy lifting while we're here."

Sloth arrived back as Winry was repacking her tools.

"Okay, my plan worked," declared Sloth, proud of herself. "The city we're in is called Paris. It's in a country called France that's been taken over by one called Germany. Germany's fighting a huge war trying to take over this world. They're also rounding up people based on their bloodlines and shipping them off to camps."

"That makes sense," mused Winry. "Ed said this world had a violent history, and that the invasion was about getting weapons from our world to use to conquer this one."

"It doesn't look like word's spread about us specifically," added Sloth. "The soldiers tried to stop us because of how you look, Greed."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Apparently they treat dark skin as a mark of inferior breeding," she replied with a wrinkle of her nose. "They enforce segregation of different groups. On the plus side, your group isn't one of the ones they're sending to the camps, but you apparently need papers to freely travel, and seeing you with me and Winry makes them think you're breaking their laws about mixing races."

"It figures," I noted with an ironic smile. "I leave one world's prejudices behind and land in the middle of whole new ones."

"Obviously we need to find someone who can forge documentation," said Winry. "The first soldier said something about a resistance."

"I don't think the 'naive child asking around' trick will work for finding a secretive resistance movement," said Sloth.

"Well, then," said Winry, "I'll just have to do the asking around. They aren't checking everyone's papers, and I don't look like someone they need to stop."

"Civilians wearing matching patches are part of the mistrusted underclass," said Sloth. "Approach them alone and say you don't like what's been going on. Otherwise, don't talk to them at all."

"Got it," replied Winry.

"We can't stay hidden in this alley forever," I added.

"There's a train station," said Sloth. "Greed and I'll meet you near there."

"Good luck," said Winry.

"Stay safe," I advised. "Sloth and I can take a lot more damage than you can."

We went our separate ways. I had to hope Winry could navigate this strange culture safely, but I couldn't worry too much about her. I had to focus on navigating a hostile, occupied city myself.

. . .

Sloth and I stuck to back routes, avoiding the main German patrols. We occasionally got turned around in the enormous city, and had to ask for directions. The marked citizens, usually wearing yellow hexagram patches, were the most friendly in pointing us in the right direction. Once at the train station, we scoped out a vantage point to watch the crowd from.

I settled in to watch for Winry while Sloth went to work the crowd and gather more information. As I waited, a group of people wearing the hexagram mark were escorted up to the train station by armed soldiers. Most of them looked frightened, and a couple broke down in tears as they were forcibly led up to a waiting train.

A woman fell to her knees and grabbed at the legs of one of the soldiers, begging hysterically. She earned a backhand that looked like it broke her jaw for her efforts. Then the soldier unholstered his gun.

This wasn't my fight, wasn't my war. These weren't my people, and this wasn't even my world. I was here to rescue someone and go home. Doing anything to draw attention to myself would endanger that mission, and might lead to me being trapped here.

But this was wrong, and I had far less to fear from German bullets than these people did, even with my regeneration off the table. I reached into my backpack, drew the pistol I'd been carrying, and shot the soldier in the chest before he could execute the civilian.

A dozen German soldiers spun toward me and fired in my direction, heedless of what was downrange of me. I was on my feet, and running in a wide circle. My shoes weren't boosting my speed anymore, but my homonculus body was still stronger and faster than a human one. Bullets flew past me as I circled around until I was between the soldiers and the train.

The woman had since been pulled back into the crowd of marked captives and disappeared. Whatever happened from this point, I'd saved her. A bullet grazed the side of my temple, and I was tripped by something I hadn't noticed. A superhumanly strong grip pulled me under the train as I fell.

Sloth had maneuvered there when the shooting started. She knew how I'd move and when, under the circumstances. Sloth and I were soon on our feet, darting between trains and pursued by a small group of German soldiers. Our high speed and use of cover made us impossible to accurately target.

When we'd gained enough distance, we fled into the city. A few twists and turns, and the two of us stopped in a dark alley to regroup.

"That was our meeting spot for Winry," Sloth complained. In a more understanding tome, "Did the woman get away?"

"She's still with the other prisoners," I said, "but they probably can't single her out again, especially if they're looking for us."

At that point, strong arms grabbed both Sloth and I from the shadows. A hand with a vice-like grip covered each of our mouths, and an arm attempted to pin our arms at our waists. Sloth was lifted off the ground by her assailant.

They'd bitten off more than they could chew. I bashed the back of my head into my assailant's noze, and heard it break. Then I pushed off with my feet and slapped the surprised man into a brick wall, knocking the wind out of him and releasing his grip.

Sloth simply grabbed hold of the restraining arm and pried it off her. Once she opened his grip, she planted her feet against the man's stomache and launched herself away and him into the alley's opposite wall.

"It's okay!" called Winry's voice from deeper in the shadows. "They're on our side!"

Winry stepped into view, and the two men held their hands out and gave Sloth and I space.

"Who are you?" I demanded of the men.

The one who'd attacked me was holding his nose to stop the bleeding, so the other man answered, "We're with the French Resistance. Your friend here asked for our help. After seeing you fight those Nazis, we figured we were on the same side. You'll be happy to know your distraction let us get that group of Jews to safety."

"They got away?" I asked hopefully.

"We're distributing them through some safehouses until we can find a way to get them out of the country," he confirmed.

"And you had to grab us like that why?" demanded Sloth with annoyance.

"We might've startled you otherwise, and we might not get a chance to explain," said the one with the nosebleed a bit sheepishly.

I put a hand on Sloth's shoulder and looked at the man. "Let's just agree that was a bad plan and move on to what we do next."

"Agreed," said the uninjured man. "First, we need to get you three to a safehouse. The Nazis are looking for you."

"Lead the way," I replied.

. . .

The safehouse was a two story building in another part of the city with a concealed entrance to an attic we could squeeze into on short notice. The men left shortly after dropping us off. Someone would be back by later.

Sloth started going over our stock of red stones again once the door was closed. Winry looked over the kitchen and started salivating over the appliances. I found a corner and sank to the floor trembling.

"Greed?" asked Sloth when she noticed. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," I admitted as tears started to well up in my eyes.

"We're not draining the stones anymore," she offered somewhat helplessly. "Walking, talking, and using our strength doesn't look like it uses them up. Just our active powers and probably our regeneration."

"That's not what's bothering me, but thanks. That's good to know. It's that soldier."

"Which soldier?"

"The one I shot to save that woman. I don't understand," I said as the tears started running down my face.

"Humans can be cruel," Sloth offered.

"And I killed him," I said, still trying to process the situation.

"I don't think it's supposed to be easy, having to do something like that, even for the best reasons," added Winry. She'd stepped closer, but the look in her eye said she was seeing something from the past.

"I've killed people before," I admitted. "Two chimeras in Liore. Broke the blood seal on an animated suit of armor. I didn't like doing those either, but why does this feel so much worse?"

I answered my own question.

"Because they didn't look human? What kind of sick bastard cares more about another person's life because of how much they look like him?""

Sloth put her arms around my bicep and leaned her head against my shoulder. She didn't have anything to say to that, but she just offered her presence. It helped.

Winry backed off and gave me some space. Before she'd fully withdrawn, she quietly offered, "We can't choose our feelings. All we can control is our actions."

I'm not sure how long I sat there sobbing. I do know after a while, the tears were more over things that had happened in the past than over killing one soldier before he murdered someone in cold blood.

. . .

When the resistance members returned, I'd regained my composure and was reclining in the same corner companionably with Sloth. Winry had disassembled the various kitchen appliances and had the parts laid out on the table and floor. The men stopped in the doorway and stared for a moment.

"You've never been bored?" I chided them. They blinked then came the rest of the way inside.

"We have walking papers for you," said one of the men. "They'll pass a casual inspection, but anyone looks too close, assume your cover's blown."

Each of us accepted a package of documents. As I looked over mine, Winry asked, "Can you help us find someone? We're here looking for two young men named Edward and Alphonse Elric."

"Name doesn't ring a bell," replied the resistance member. "And I'm afraid you're not going to get the chance to keep looking. The Nazis are distributing your description. We have to get you out of the city."

"Once we find them, we have a plan for getting out," I said. "This is a rescue mission."

"You're not going to be rescuing anyone if the Nazis catch you," emphasized the resistance member. "And they haven't exactly been shy about killing women and children."

"Thank you for everything," said Winry, setting a hand on my shoulder. "Those two aren't exactly subtle. If you haven't heard anything, we're probably going to need to move on with our search anyway."

"They'll be fighting," I said with confidence. "They'll probably be aiming for a decapitation strike like they did in Liore."

"You think those people you're looking for are crazy enough to try and kill Hitler on their own?" asked one of the men.

"More likely they'll try and capture him alive and make him order a surrender," I replied.

"Either way, that's where we should be going," said Sloth. "We might meet up with them along the way, and if we don't, we can end this war and make it easier to look for them."

"That's a nice idea," said one of the resistance members to Sloth in that patronizing tone some people take when explaining things to small children. "But to get to him would mean infiltrating Germany proper, evading the army, dealing with his bodyguards. That's not something a few people can do on their own, and certainly not while protecting a little girl the whole way."

"Which way is Germany?" asked Winry with a determined look in her eye.

"You can't be serious," said one of the resistance members.

"We're serious," I said, rising to my feet. "It's the closest thing to a lead we have. These papers can get us on a train heading that direction, right?"

"We're not going to let you go," said the man.

"Remember how things went last time you tried to grab us?" asked Sloth rhetorically. "We're going."

When the three of us started to head for the door, the two men moved to restrain us. Sloth hit the one approaching her with an open palm to his stomach, and he flew back five feet from the blow, impacting a wall hard. The other man stopped dead in his tracks.

"What are you people?"

"It's sort of hard to explain," I said, stopping to check the condition of Sloth's opponent. Once I confirmed he was okay, I continued, "Suffice it to say, we're stronger, faster, and tougher than any normal human."

"Holy crap," said the one who was still conscious. "Why didn't you tell us you were super soldiers?"

"We were trying to keep a low profile, obviously," said Sloth.

"Operative word being 'trying'," I sighed.

"Hey," said Sloth, "You were the one who attacked the soldiers earlier.

"What did you think I was talking about?" I replied.

She gestured at the groaning man struggling to his feet.

"Oh yeah," I said. "That too, I guess."

"Point is," said Winry, "we can take care of ourselves. If you can help in any way, we'd appreciate it, but we are going."

"Look, if you're serious about this, you'll need a lot better plan than getting on the next train to Berlin and breaking into the High Command."

"We're listening," I said.

"We have a small villa out in the countryside you can use as a base of operations. We can provide you with equipment and intelligence. Maybe you raid a few Nazi facilities for more of both, then we help smuggle you into Germany proper. Hell, if these guys you're looking for are messing with the Nazis, they might have some clues where to start looking."

"He's got a point," admitted Sloth.

I nodded to Winry, who said, "We're in. Lead the way."

. . .

The villa was a small farmhouse with a concealed cellar where a card table had been set up, and maps were laid out on it. The Resistance provided food and medical supplies, and I gave them a shopping list for red water precursors. If we were going to be spending our downtime on a farm anyway, I wanted to be able to replenish our resources.

"So, it looks like we're going to have to fight a war to get Ed and Al back," I sighed when the three of us were alone together.

"At least we have support now," said Sloth.

"Are we going to be able to open the Gate home with the red stones we have left?" asked Winry.

"I'm not sure," I admitted. "I don't want to risk using more up figuring that out until we can make more. How long should I expect that bullet wound to take healing without my regeneration?"

"For a normal human," said Winry, "It'll take a couple weeks before the wound stays closed without stitches, but there'll be a risk of reopening it for months. That's ignoring the fact that you've been shot through a lung, which is a bit more disabling for most people."

"Okay, I'll be the one to ask," said Sloth. "How did you find the resistance so quick?"

"Old family secret," Winry said mysteriously.

"We might get separated," I argued. "If this would help us find each other..."

"You're no fun," pouted Winry. "My parents were doctors during the war in Ishbal. They treated injured on both sides of the fighting. Members of resistance groups get injured and don't usually risk going to a normal hospital. I followed a trail of medical supplies to a secret hospital and offered to help their injured in exchange for their help."

"I wouldn't have thought of that," I admitted.

"I'm not planning on being dead weight on this trip," she said with determination. "I may not be a fighter, but what I can do is going to contribute to getting Ed and Al home."

. . .

Safely working with Red Water required specialized equipment. Back in our world, I'd have transmuted perfectly airtight containers, ventilation systems, and the like.

Here, Winry put her mechanical aptitude to use building the equipment out of whatever she could find around the farm.

While Winry took apart a tractor for spare parts, Sloth went over the paperwork the resistance left us. She picked out a handful of targets and put together basic plans for our raids.

Feeling less than useful, I busied myself counting and weighing our current stock of red stones. I'd hoped that a stable initial measurement might be useful in determining how quickly we were burning through them, but it was mostly just busywork.

By the end of the day, Winry had a chamber for me to work with, and I planted a few philosopher's flower seeds I'd brought. She'd gone all out preparing it, automating the watering cycles, adding wipers to the glass so it could clean itself if it got too grimy for the sunlight to get in, and several tanks for the red water and its ingredients for when those were delivered.

"We can make our first raid tomorrow," said Sloth. "If we have something to show when the resistance gets back, it'll encourage them to keep helping."

Winry sat down at the kitchen table with us carrying a plate. Since Sloth and I didn't need to eat, it seemed wasteful for us to indulge while we were guests with such limited resources to begin with.

"You should stay back and keep an eye on our stuff," I told Winry. "You're still human, and they're going to be shooting at us on this raid."

"I didn't travel to another universe to mind the shop while you go out and do the work," she protested. "Neither of you knows much about machines, and that's what all the really big weapons are on this side."

"That's why we can't risk losing you," said Sloth. "Greed and I can get torn to shreds with machine-gun fire or blow up with a bomb and still come back. It'll burn out more red stones doing it, but if you're gone, we permanently lose our technology expert. Hell, if you lose us permanently, Ed and Al can handle the alchemy to get you home. We're expendable."

"Okay," said Winry, "it is really creepy hearing talk like that coming out of a little girl."

Sloth chewed on her upper lip and blushed.

"We're not planning on dying out there," I said. "As for 'creepy,' she hasn't exactly lived a charmed life. Her father toyed with her mind and alternated between using her as a weapon and using her as a doll. Anyone who goes through something like that should count themselves lucky if their worst problem is coming off as 'creepy'."

"Winry," said Sloth in a small voice, "I don't want you to die. Let us handle this. Please."

Sloth and I walked out and up to the room we'd picked out, both hoping we'd made our point.

"Am I really creepy?" she asked when we were alone.

"When she points it out, I can see what she's saying," I admitted. "And I don't much like you talking like your life's worth less than anyone else's." I put a hand on her cheek and turned her head so we were looking one another in the eye. "You are a wonderful, warm-hearted, unique person, and the world would be a lesser place without you. I love you, so don't you insult me by implying I'm a poor judge of character." I leaned down and gently kissed her on the lips.

"I love you too, Greed," she said when our lips parted. "We've got a big day tomorrow. I know we don't need sleep, but I think we could both use the rest."

"It's been a long day," I agreed. We laid down together and fell asleep in one another's arms.

. . .

Author's comments:  
There's only so prepared you can be for walking into an alien world. Sometimes you just have to improvise, and keep improvising until you can get your feet under you.


	32. Homonculi Versus Nazis

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 32) Homonculi Versus Nazis  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Winry was waiting for us when we came out to the common area in the morning. Clothes, weapons, and other equipment were laid out on a table.

"I spent all last night going over our supplies," she said when we entered. "These clothes should blend in with the terrain you're headed through a little better than your normal black ones. I also figured that since regenerating uses up stones while your strength doesn't, I'd put together some body armor for you. I attached some metal plates to a couple jackets. They're a little heavy for a human, but they should stop a small caliber bullet. I managed to scrounge up a couple helmets too."

Lifting the jacket intended for me and checking the size, I said, "This should really help a lot."

"I counted out a handful of red stones for you to take with you in case of an emergency. They're in the belt-pouch next to the extra ammunition. The resistance left us a few rifles and we've still got the pistols we brought. I did some maintenance on them, so they should hold together whatever happens out there."

"Now I'm feeling lazy for wasting last night sleeping," said Sloth as she buckled the chin strap of her helmet.

Winry shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I plan on collapsing as soon as you two leave."

"Thank you, Winry," I said.

"Just remember to grab all the information you can get. And steal a few Nazi uniforms while you're there."

"Can do," I replied.

"Anything else on our shopping list?" asked Sloth with a smirk.

"Surprise me," replied Winry playfully as we walked out the door.

. . .

The military outpost Sloth had selected was about an hour's drive from the farmhouse we were working out of. The resistance had left us an old truck that Winry had resisted the urge to cannibalize for parts. We parked out of sight then circled around the facility, hoping to make it a little less clear to the Nazis what our escape route would be.

The outpost was surrounded with barbed wire topped walls. A tower with good sight lines sat on wooden stilts in the courtyard. A large fuel tank sat next to the railroad tracks that ran through the base. A dozen engines were parked inside.

Sloth had a smaller profile, so she ducked low and crossed the field to press her back against the wall. I waited three breaths, lowered my head, and followed. Sloth cupped her hands as I approached. Without slowing my run, I planted my foot in Sloth's hands. I launched up and grabbed the concrete ledge of the wall, a bit back from the barbed wire.

Sloth jumped up and caught my leg. She scrambled up my body until we were hanging off the wall side by side. We looked over the barbed wire as we hung there. The lookout in the tower walked a circle at a pretty regular pace, so we waited for our opening.

Our moment came. We nodded to one another and sprang onto the wall, each navigating our chosen routes through the wire. We both moved slower than we'd like, but we avoided getting caught or tangled and managed to drop down between the wall and one of the engines. Soldiers were walking patrols inside the walls. We hid behind one of the engines and waited for one of the soldiers to walk by.

You can stand surprisingly still if you don't need to breathe. The soldier didn't notice us until I'd covered his mouth to keep him from calling out. Sloth wrenched his rifle away from his grip. the soldier struggled, but he wasn't strong enough to break out of a homonculus' grip. I managed to choke him out until he lost consciousness.

We pulled him silently into the control room of one of the train engines. I stripped him and loaded his uniform into a backpack while Sloth bound and gagged him.

We took out a second patrol by the same method before we felt safe enough to move around inside the wall. Since the goal was intelligence, we headed for a wooden shack near the center with a truck parked outside. I knocked on the door as though I was supposed to be there, and when it was opened, I knocked him unconscious with a palm to the nose. Sloth was scrambling inside at high speed before he hit the ground. If she hadn't, we would have been in trouble. As it was, she covered the distance to the other man before he could rise from the desk he was seated at. Sloth planted her palms on the desk and vaulted up, kicking him in the face with both feet.

We pulled the door shut, closed the blinds, and got to work. Sloth rummaged through the desk drawers and threw papers into backpacks as I stripped the soldiers and stowed their gear.

Shouting from outside was our first warning that our presence had been discovered. We quickly buttoned up our packs and redied our rifles. The soldier who burst through the door was clearly there to report. His weapon was in his hand, but not pointed in. Sloth and I both opened fire. At least one of us hit him, because he went down.

Our position revealed, Sloth and I made a run for it. Nazi soldiers opened fire on us as we ran for the cover of the train engines.

"There's too many of them," I said urgently.

"We can outrun them," replied Sloth, darting her eyes around. "If we can take out that tower, they won't be able to get us before we make the tree line."  
"I'll get the tower," I said with a nod. "You start for the wall."

We split up, and I made a run for the base of the tower. A dozen soldiers split their fire between us. Sloth was a smaller target than me, and ended up taking just one hit to her chest, right in the middle of the armored plate Winry had provided. By contrast, I took three hits, fortunately also in my armored vest.

At the tower's base, I closed a fist and punched the six inch wooden support pillar. My superhuman strength splintered the wood and shook the tower. The soldiers paused to stare at the inhuman display of might. I took full advantage of their shock and shattered a second support.

As the tower fell, the soldiers shook off their surprise and started shooting at me again. A bullet hit my shoulder, an area not overed by the vest. I felt bone break, and suddenly my right arm stopped responding to my commands and fell limp.

Sloth opened fire on the Nazis with a pistol, dropping one of them with a shot to the back, and drew some fire. I ran to her, close lining one of the soldiers as I ran past, using my left arm. Sloth cupped her hands to give me a boost.

A lucky shot hit Sloth in the face. Her helmet only covered so much, and the bullet hit hear her nose, penetrating straight through and destroying the brainstem. I slid to a stop near her as Sloth collapsed, clapped my left hand against my limp right, and slapped my left hand against the wall. Blue arcs of alchemic light danced from the point of contact a split second before a section of the wall exploded outward.

I scooped Sloth's body up with my good arm and sprinted out through the hole. I'd gotten only a dozen feet when an explosion blew off my right leg and tossed me three feet. I'd stepped on a landmine.

A burst of blue light shone from Sloth's face as she regenerated the fatal injury. She quickly assessed the situation and started shooting through the hole in the wall the soldiers were starting to peek through.

"We need to get out of here," she yelled over the sound of her own gunfire. "Grow your leg back and let's go!"

I tried. It didn't work. "We're out of red stones!" I called back.

"Damn," she said. "We can't stay here."

"Help me stand," I said as I drew a pistol with my left hand and took a shot at the gap in the wall to keep their hands down.

Sloth ran to the treeline and retrieved a pair of sticks for me to use as makeshift crutches. With her help, I managed to get upright. We reached the treeline with the occasional shot back toward the wall gap to discourage pursuit.

. . .

Winry was looking out an upstairs window when our truck rolled back in to the farmhouse drive. Sloth was driving slowly, and had been since we left, since she couldn't reach the petals and see over the dash at the same time. Winry met us at the door as Sloth ground to a stop.

"What happened out there?" Winry demanded when she saw my condition.

"I told you it was going to be dangerous out there," I said.

"I packed you red stones," she replied.

"I used them recovering from a head shot," said Sloth. "Can you bring some out for Greed?"

"Don't," I said. "Our resources are limited. Regenerating fatal wounds is one thing, but this is unnecessary. Once we confirm we can replenish our resources, sure, but until our crop of philosopher's flowers produces a stone we have to assume what we brought is all we have."

"What are you going to do in the meantime?" asked Sloth.

"We brought an automail mechanic with us, didn't we?" I said with a smile.

"You brought the best," affirmed Winry with pride as she went to help me into the farmhouse.

"Can you take a look at my right arm while you're checking me over? I got hit, but I'm not sure how bad it is."

"Did the body armor I made you help at all?" demanded Winry in frustration.

Plucking some deformed bullets out of the vest, I said, "I'd say so."

Sloth did the same and held a bullet up to Winry. "You made it so we only had one fatal wound to regenerate between us."

. . .

When Winry had finished looking over my injuries and applying bandages where needed, it turned out that without regeneration, my right arm would be useless for at least six months and might never recover. I made the choice and told Winry to amputate it and replace it with automail too.

"I don't get it," said Sloth when Winry left the room to inventory our supplies and make a list of what parts she needed for the automail. "Didn't you go on this big quest so you wouldn't need automail anymore?"

"I'm not happy about losing the limbs," I affirmed. "I'm just trying to think long term. If we run out of red stones, we'll be stranded. I've used automail before, and it isn't ideal, but it can get me functional."

"If you're going to be like that, just don't lose any more limbs. I'd rather you had at least one hand that can feel my skin on yours."

"I'll do what I can," I promised as I stroked her cheek with my left hand. Sloth held my hand to her cheek with both of her hands, and we both savored the sensation of warmth from each other.

. . .

Winry took the truck into town to pick up the parts. I'd insisted Sloth go along as a bodyguard. In return, she'd made me promise I'd do what I had to if I was attacked while alone. While they were gone, I went over the papers we'd recovered from the Nazi train fuel depot. There were maps of train routes, train schedules, and locations of other fuel depots. It also included partial cargo manifests, as well as several sets of identification papers. I wasn't sure what all could be done with this intelligence, but going over it helped pass the time.

I'd been going over the papers for three hours when one of the cargo manifests caught my eye. A combination of chemicals were being shipped to a location in Germany proper. They were red water precursors. The Nazis had an alchemy program.

Our best information indicated the invasion of our world was originally about acquiring weapons that could be used against their enemies in this world. Hohenheim Elric had thought them enough to use Envy to open the Gate. Maybe they'd worked out other ways to use what he'd taught them. Maybe they'd learned how to make red water from Edward and Alphonse later. Or maybe Shao had survived his trip through the Gate after all. Whatever the case, this was a lead.

. . .

When Sloth and Winry arrived back, I was in the safe room going over the information we had on the red water facility. There wasn't much, since the resistance was focused on French territory. The only thing I was able ot confirm was that the facility was a concentration camp being used to house undesirables.

"Greed? How did you get down here?" asked Sloth when they found me.

"With difficulty," I snarked. "I have something. The Nazis are making a Stone."

"A philosopher's Stone?" asked Winry with a horrified expression.

I handed her the papers I'd been going over. "That's what they're doing with the Jews. Look, they're shipping red water precursors to this concentration camp."

"We have to stop them," said Sloth as she looked over the papers Winry was holding.

"I'd say this is our new priority one," I agreed. "Did you get the parts you need for the automail?"

"Yeah," said Winry shaking her head and setting down the papers. "The industrial processes here aren't as precise as back home. The alloys aren't as pure and the parts aren't as uniform. I guess I never really thought about how much alchemy made my job easier. But yeah, I can still make you a new arm and leg better than most of what you could find back home."

"Good," I declared. "As soon as I'm functional, we'll need to move."

"This camp's pretty deep in Germany," noted Sloth. "It won't be as simple as loading into the truck and driving there."

"Hopefully, the resistance will appreciate the papers and uniforms you two retrieved and help out," suggested Winry.

"We can only hope," I agreed.

"The arm and leg are going to take all day to finish," said Winry. "I'll be upstairs if you need me."

When we were alone, Sloth brought up the worry that was on both of our minds. "Do you think my father's involved in this?"

"The philosopher stone's advanced alchemy. Marcho's method is a refinement past the Ishbalan Grand Arcanum. Even in our world, most people who learned how to make a Stone were thought by homonculi instead of figuring it out on their own, and here there's no way to experiment with even basic alchemy until you have a Stone. I don't see how they could know to do this without someone from our world."

"And Edward and Alphonse wouldn't do this," she sighed. Sloth burred her head in my chest, and I wrapped my good arm around her. "Why does this keep happening, Greed? I thought we were done."

I just held her for a long while. There was nothing I could say that could change how unfair fate had been to her, and any promise to end it this time would be bittersweet for her at best.

. . .

Winry was as good as her word, and had finished the automail by midday the next day. Sloth held me down during the surgery. The experience was every bit as excruciating as I remembered, multiplied by two for the second limb being replaced. In context with rebuilding my body from a pile of misshapen organs and organic slurry, however, I handled the process with considerably more grace than I'd managed the first time.

I was sitting up and flexing the fingers of my new hand an hour later when members of the French Resistance arrived delivering the red water supplies we'd requested. There were two men, who were each carrying sealed barrels into the farmhouse, and both stopped to stare at my new mechanical limbs.

"Is this everything?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"Yeah, these are the chemicals you asked for," said one of the men, as he deliberately took his eye off my obviously mechanical hand.

"Great," I said taking one of the barrels. "We have some uniforms and intelligence for you, and a couple captured weapons."

Winry and Sloth entered the room at that point. Sloth ran over and took the barrel the other man was struggling with, and called out with girlish glee, "It's here! It's here!"

"I-" started the man Sloth had taken the large, heavy barrel from. "Are you robots?""

"Sloth and I are artificial life forms, if it makes a difference," I responded. "Winry's human."

"They both look and act so human," said one of the men to Winry. "How did you make them?"

"I'm just handling maintenance and replacement parts," said Winry, quirking a smile and throwing Sloth and I a wink as we carried the chemicals to where our equipment was set up.

We retrieved the spoils of our raid on the train depot and brought them out to the resistance. They quickly inventoried the weapons and uniforms before sitting down to go over the papers.

"What do you know about these concentration camps?" I asked.

"Not much that isn't common knowledge," said one of the men, still distracted by my automail. "The Nazis ship everyone from the Jews and Gypsies to POWs and conflicts to the camps. They kept them in ghettos for the longest time, but I guess they decided sending them out of the cities would do a better job of isolating them. Supposedly, they're being used as forced labor, but no one I've talked to knows for sure."

"We need to get to this camp," said Winry. "Can you help us?"

"What's so special about that one?" asked the other man.

"They're working on a major weapon there," Sloth said. "Something that would win them the war if they succeed."

"What kind of weapon?"

We looked at one another, unsure as to how to proceed. Finally, I spoke.

"We have to show them. Winry, can you go get just one red stone from our stock?" She got up and hustled out of the room. "These chemicals you brought us are involved with the same thing the Nazis are working on, just a million times weaker. Here, have a look at these cargo manifests."

"Definitely the same stuff," said one of the men.

"Here," said Winry as she returned and handed me a single red stone the size of a human thumb.

"These can be put to an almost unimaginable number of uses," I began. "Someone with the proper knowledge can break down matter at its most fundamental level and rebuild it into something else."

I grabbed a handful of screws and bolts from a nearby table and set them on the table between us, clearing an area of papers for my demonstration. I set the stone near the scrap, clapped my hands, and held them over it. Blue alchemic light poured off the scrap metal. The bolts broke down and flowed together, and before the stunned eyes of both men, a long dagger had been transmuted. I frowned, noting the glow of my red stone had faded by more than half from just that simple transmutation. I wished I had a way to quantify the energy stored inside.

"That's- that's magic," said one of the men as he regained the power of speech.

"Alchemy," I corrected.

"And this is what the Nazis are doing," reminded Sloth. "Only a million times more powerful. We need to stop them or this war is as good as over."

"How long do we have," asked the man nervously.

"They may already have prototypes," I said bluntly. "The more time they're given, the stronger they'll get."

"We need to report back on this," he said. "We... we'll need to take care how we express this, but we will get what we need to put a stop to this."

"Stop the flow of prisoners and chemicals, and it'll slow them down," suggested Sloth.

. . .

Author's comments:  
The Thule society has already attempted to acquire alchemic weapons from the Nazis. The Philosopher's Stone is fueled by mass deaths and genocides. This started as a rescue mission, but it's gained a new importance.


	33. Romantic Interlude 7

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 33) Romantic Interlude 7  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 34.  
***WARNING***

. . .

We were left alone again when the pair went to go convince their superiors to help us. Sloth and I went out to the barn with the red water chemicals, warning Winry to keep out due to their toxicity should something go wrong with containment.

"Things have just been getting crazier since we got to this world. How's your arm and leg, Greed?"

"I feel fine now," I told her as I started mixing up the red water. "Though lack of feeling in my right hand'll take some getting used to."

"We haven't really had a chance to be alone since we arrived," she added, stretching her arms out above her head.

I smiled at her. "Well, we have, but there's always been something else on our minds at the time."

"The plants'll take a couple weeks to grow without alchemy boosting them," she said as she unbuttoned her shirt. "The red water'll be ready in plenty of time even if we get a little distracted."

Sloth dropped her shirt behind her, showing off her lovely flat chest. I felt my pants tighten and my heart speed up. Sloth absently played with one of her nipples as she strolled over to me, and I found myself fumbling to open my fly with the unfamiliar automail fingers of my right hand.

Sloth took my mechanical hand and pushed it aside. "Let me," she said as she unzipped my pants, angling herself so my crotch stayed at eye level. That she could manage that while standing straight up just turned me on more.

I leaned over her body as she slowly unfastened my fly and stared down her naked back. I took my left hand and gently but firmly ran my palm down Sloth's spine. She was still wearing her pants, so when I reached the waistband, I slid my fingertips under it, feeling up her butt under her clothes.

Sloth got my pants undone, and I felt her tiny fingers take my erect penis out. It never stopped exciting me that she couldn't wrap the fingers of one hand all the way around my penis when I was aroused. I leaned back against one of the barrels, since I knew whatever came next, my legs weren't going to want to support my weight.

As I leaned back, I saw Sloth lick her lips and open her tiny mouth as wide as she could. I felt my penis twitch in her hands at the sight. Sloth's tongue made contact with the head of my penis, and she used her tongue along with both hands to guide the tip into her open mouth. I felt her lips seal around me with half the head in her mouth. She purred with pleasure, sending enjoyable vibrations through the penis in her mouth before she started to suck.

I moaned with approval, and stroked Sloth's hair with my left hand, and using my automail one to brace myself on the barrel. Her braids had gotten loser over the past couple of days, since we were both used to using our powers for basic maintenance like that. As a result, all it took was running my fingers through her long, brown hair to leave it draped across her back as she sucked on my penis.

Sloth's tiny fingers stroked my shaft freely, as she used her mouth to keep everything in place. Her eyes briefly darted up to meet mine, and when she saw me smiling, I felt her increase the suction she was applying to the tip of my penis. Her hands gripped my penis tighter and she closed her eyes in concentration.

Her head bobbed gently as she gradually took the whole head of my penis into her tiny mouth. From past experience, I knew that without her intangibility powers, Sloth had no way to get the head of my penis back out of her mouth at this point, and would have to wait until I came and my erection faded in the afterglow.

With her mouth almost completely filled, Sloth tilted her head and maneuvered her tongue in a way I found enjoyable. Then she did something new. Gripping my penis firmly in both hands, I felt her tongue moving in familiar ways. She was trying, unsuccessfully, to swallow my penis. I groaned with approval and pressed her head down gently in time with her attempts. On the third try, I came, sending an initial spurt of semen directly down Sloth's throat.

I heard her gag and let up the pressure on the back of her head. The next two spurts of my ejaculate filled what little space remained in her mouth. Sloth wasted no time swallowing down spurt after spurt of my semen, until I had no more to give. She kept my penis in her mouth as she ran her tongue over her teeth and swallowed down the last of what she'd coaxed out of me.

"Wow," I said as Sloth reluctantly removed my penis from her mouth and licked her lips. "I don't think you missed a drop."

"Cleanup is a little trickier in this world," said Sloth as she slid a hand down the front of her pants and began obviously masturbating. "Not that I don't love getting sticky all over from you."

I laid down a towel and said, "Why don't you get those pants off so I can have a good view of you rubbing yourself while I finish setting up the red water? That should give me time to recharge."

Sloth giggled and pulled her hand back out, sticking her moist fingers in my mouth to be sucked clean before she complied, undressing the rest of the way as I got the cocktail of supremely toxic chemicals mixed. Sloth was flat on her back on the towel, naked and fingering herself with her legs spread wide when I finished filling the auto-feeder for our Philosopher's flowers with red water. It took me twice as long as usual to set up the mixture because I kept getting distracted watching Sloth play with her hairless crotch, and needing to recheck my work. I certainly wasn't complaining about the distraction. The whole time, she craned her head to see that I was still watching her performance.

Kicking my clothes off in a hurry, I crawled over top of Sloth's naked and writhing body, and kissed her mouth hungrily. She let out a muffled groan of pleasure and kissed back as she continued to masturbate. I broke our kiss and ran my lips down Sloth's chin, on to her chest and nibbled gently at one of her nipples. I felt her body tense beneath me , as she reached her orgasm, squirting out ejaculate over the towel I'd laid down for her. I kept licking and teasing Sloth's nipple as she came down from her orgasm and slowed the previously furious movement of the hand she was fingering herself with.

I started kissing my way further down her naked body, and her slow breathing picked back up. Using my right hand to support myself, I took Sloth's hand in my left and started alternating between licking the sexual fluids off her legs and pubic mound, and sucking them off her tiny fingers. As I cleaned up after her with my tongue, I felt tension starting to build in her body.

I crawled up to look Sloth in the eye, and deliberately licked my lips. With Sloth's hand still in mine, I gently wrapped her fingers around the shaft of my penis. Sloth used her other hand to spread her labia in response.

"Are you ready for me to go inside?" I asked.

"Put it in," she practically begged. "You made me masturbate for twenty minutes thinking about this. Stop making me wait."

I thrusted my hips forward, trusting Sloth to guide me in. My one complaint about Sloth's four year old body was that the difference in our heights made it hard to maintain eye contact while I penetrated her, and harder still to kiss her lips. Her other attributes more than made up for that minor complaint, as I was reminded each time I felt her tight, prepubescent vagina squeezing the portion of my penis I could fit inside her.

I was more cautious than I'd gotten used to being in our world, since she'd have to heal any accidental injuries the conventional way. I took two pumps to get the head of my penis fully inside her, and I used slightly less pressure as my depth began to approach the point I knew her cervix would be.

Sloth herself showed no such caution, shifting her hips and urging me onward with a desperation that made me think I might have left her playing with herself alone too long. The girl wrapped her legs around me, and I took the opportunity to cup her butt cheek and run my hand down her thigh as I continued to thrust into her.

"Cum inside me, Greed," Sloth gasped. "I want you to fill me up. Don't stop until every last drip is in me."

I felt her climax again as the tip of my penis bumped against her cervix. Her vaginal contractions squeezed my penis pleasurably as Sloth's muscle control failed her. The legs wrapped around my hips relaxed, and I found the hand I'd been groping her butt with was now supporting weight. Her voice raised in pitch with each contraction, though she wasn't in any state to be forming words.

Halfway through Sloth's climax, I reached mine. I thursted my hips in time with her orgasm, and I started pumping semen into her gorgeous body. I kept it up longer than I'd expected without my regeneration, but eventually it came to an end. With both of us spent and panting, I rolled over onto my back next to my lover, once again lining us up so I could gaze into her eyes.

"It's been a while since we did that without regeneration," I commented. "I enjoyed myself. How was it for you?"

Sloth kissed me in a reply that left no question that she was pleased. When our lips parted, she smirked and said, "I've had better, but I can get used to it."

I reached over to playfully slap the back of her head for the mock insult. She rolled out of the way, giggling, then got to her feet and offered her hand. I took it and got to my feet.

"I love you, Greed," she said as I stood up.

I scooped her up in my arms, supporting her butt with my flesh and blood left hand and said, "I love you too, Sloth. Let's get cleaned up. There's a shower in here in case of a spill."

I carried Sloth over to the decontamination shower, and we both took turns running our hands over every inch of one another's skin as we cleaned one another. After we dried of, Sloth sat on my knee while I rebraided her hair. The detail work gave me some practice with my automail fingers. I still couldn't feel the texture with that hand, but I was gaining confidence that my limb would do as it was told.

As I worked her hair into her twin braids, I said, "Our powers would've gotten all this done in seconds. I'm not the only one who's grateful we aren't using them just now, am I?"

"I'd rather have the option," said Sloth. "We could still have these moments without being forced by circumstances. And without loosing..." She trailed off, looking over at my mechanical right leg. At this point, I think my injuries were bothering her more than they were me.

"Let's get dressed and let Winry know the red water's ready and that in a couple weeks we'll hopefully have a few new red stones," I said as I finished tying off Sloth's second braid.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Not being able to use their powers doesn't just mean diminished combat effectiveness. How they do everything has to change, including how they clean up after themselves. Meanwhile, the automail is an issue both lovers are dealing with, but neither feels really comfortable talking about.


	34. A Train Hijacking

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 34) A Train Hijacking  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

The next morning, the two resistance members returned. Winry was eating breakfast while Sloth and I were going over the train schedules, looking for a target critical enough to disrupt the Nazi philosopher stone project. The chemical components were somewhat dangerous to process and transport, but they were too common to cut off the supply for any appreciable time with any one attack. It would have to be the prisoner transports, and those couldn't be dealt with by just setting a bomb on the railroad tracks.

"They're not convinced it's as serious as you're saying," said one of the men apologetically, but they agree that new Nazi weapons are bad news. They won't commit men, but we can provide some material support. What do you need?"

"This train is the largest pipeline of prisoners loading into the facility," said Sloth indicating one of our maps. "If we can hijack the train, not only will we get the prisoners out and slow their production, but any captured officers will have traveling papers we can use to get into Germany and make our way to the facility itself and deal with the alchemists working there."

"We can set up a roadblock here," I indicated. "After they clear the tracks, it'll take them a little while to get up to speed. They'll expect the attack while the train is stopped, but if we board by hopping down from this cliff next to the tracks while it's accelerating, we should have the element of surprise."

"Can you get us something to jam their radios?" asked Winry. "The longer it takes them to realize anything's wrong, the better."

"That should be easy enough," replied one of the men with a nod.

"After we take control of the train, can your people get the prisoners somewhere safe?" I asked.

The other man said, "You can leave that part to us."

. . .

Convincing Winry to sit this one out was an exercise in futility. Between operating the jamming equipment and figuring out how to drive the train after we captured it, there wasn't really any choice. So, Sloth, Winry, and I waited at the top of a cliff overlooking a set of railroad tracks. All three of us were loaded down with body armor. Sloth and I were armed, while Winry was carrying the radio equipment. It was early morning, and the sun was just starting to rise. The mist hadn't yet been burned away when the train chugged into view.

The Nazis wouldn't suspect boarders from the cliff side. It was too sheer to climb and too high for a normal human to safely jump down from. Taking Winry by the waist, I leapt off the cliff alongside Sloth. We landed heavily on top of one of the cars, and fortunately I was able to soften the landing enough for Winry.

The car we'd landed on was near the back of the train, and was hauling nonhuman cargo. The three of us slipped inside, and Winry set up her jammer.

"Numbers were what got us in trouble last time," I said to Sloth. "If we can take them one and two at a time, we should be okay."

"Remember," Sloth responded, "we have to have control of the whole train before it reaches the next checkpoint."

"I've got their frequency," said Winry as she adjusted the dials on the radio equipment and pressed one of the headphones against one ear. "I don't know how range is looking, so don't go more than two car lengths before I catch up."

The three of us nodded, Winry bunkered down behind cover, and Sloth and I opened the door to the first car.

Two Nazi soldiers were inside, leaning against crates similar to the ones in the car we'd just left. Both caried rifles, but neither managed to raise them before Sloth and I could rush them. I went low, tackling my opponent and knocking the wind out of him as he hit the ground. Sloth went high, hopping on the top of the crates until she was in range to kick the soldier in the face.

Neither guard had a chance to call out, and no gunshots alerted other cars to intruders. Winry moved forward to tie up the soldiers while Sloth and I advanced to the next car. Three more cars were cleared the same way. We were making good time. Then we reached the first car filled with prisoners.

Five guards were there, with automatic weapons aimed at the crowd of innocent hostages. Sloth and I both knew giving them time to assess the situation would lead to tragedy. We sprinted into the room as fast as our inhuman bodies could carry us. I judged the angles and punched the first guard with my left hand in his midsection. He flew off his feet, and collided with a second guard across the car. Sloth grabbed the leg of her primary target, pulled him off his feet, spun him in a full circle, and threw him bodily into the fourth guard.

The fifth soldier had time to get his weapon trained on me, and fired a burst into me. The body armor absorbed most of the fire, and the only other round hit my right leg, not doing any meaningful damage to the automail.

I raised my mechanical arm to protect my face from stray fire, while Sloth circled around and pistol whipped the soldier unconscious from behind.

The gunfire raised the alarm of the guards in the next car over, who flung open the door with their weapons raised. I ran straight at them, counting on the armor's continuing effectiveness, while Sloth approached from the side. Both soldiers shot at me, one hitting my automail arm and the other unable to draw a bead on me as I rushed him. Sloth got to them first, and punched one into the other hard enough to knock both out.

Two of the guards from this car began to recover at that point. Sloth and I nodded to one another, rushed over to where the Nazis had fallen, and simultaneously knocked both out.

"Are you here to rescue us?" asked one of the prisoners, a young woman.

"That's right," I said.

Sloth was getting stares while we waited for Winry to catch up. Everyone had just seen her best five heavily armed men without taking a scratch. It was a good lesson in not judging people by their appearances.

"Can someone give me a hand with this stuff?" asked Winry as she carried the radio equipment forward.

Sloth and I guarded the next door as the prisoners went to assist Winry. It got Sloth away from the questioning stares.

"You doing alright?" I asked her.

"You're the one who got shot," she replied. Then with mock annoyance added, "Again."

"I'm a bigger target than you," I playfully defended myself.

"Excuses, excuses," she bantered.

At that point, the door burst open, and two young men burst inside. The taller of the two punched me in the face as the door opened, his reflexes beating mine by a long shot. I felt my nose break, and I was pretty sure if I'd been human, I would be unconscious at that point. My opponent was a trained fighter, because he came to the same conclusion and went to run past me as though I were out of the fight.

As he went, he called out, "Noah, we're coming!"

The other young man scooped Sloth up and went to move her to a corner. Sloth kicked him in the stomach with both feet and freed herself. Sloth landed lightly and sprang forward for a counterattack. Her opponent doubled over from the kick, but recovered rapidly, grabbing Sloth's arm in a lock and using her momentum to effortlessly pin her against the wall.

Seeing his companion being attacked, my opponent turned to offer aid, and I took the opportunity to grab him by the leg and pull him off his feet. He managed to call out "Al!" before going to the ground.

Sloth took advantage of being underestimated and pried her arm free by main force. Taking her opponent by surprise, she headbutted him in the chin.

My opponent hit the ground rolling, and spun a kick toward my head. I got my automail arm up in time to block it as the sound of metal ringing against metal filled the car. I realized what was happening an instant before Winry and one of the prisoners called out in unison.

"Edward! Alphonse! Stop!"

The two alchemists we'd been searching for stopped fighting in an instant, and Sloth and I did likewise.

"Winry?" asked Alphonse confused.

"What's going on?" asked Edward.

"We came to rescue you," said Winry.

"But we destroyed the Gate on this end," said Alphonse. "You didn't-"

"No," I said. "We didn't make another permanent Gate. We navigated the regular one to get here."

Alphonse stared for a moment before saying, "You were the one who came to see Teacher about Wrath."

"You know this guy, Al?" asked Edward.

Al nodded. "He's a State Alchemist. I met him while we were separated, Brother."

Ed's expression hardened. "Is the military invading this world in retaliation for that attack?" he demanded of me.

Turning his back on Winry was a mistake. While he was distracted, she threw a wrench that hit Edward in the back of his head. "You idiot!" she yelled. "I told you, we came here to rescue you!"

"First time I see you again, you throw a wrench at me!" he yelled angrily at Winry.

"Last time, you ran off to another world first chance you got instead of even trying to think of a way to stay with us!" she yelled back with tears streaming down her face.

"Winry, I..." began Edward apologetically before proving unable to find the words.

"We had to close the Gate from this side," said Al. "There was no way to just send something through unattended. Neither one uf us wanted to leave you, right, brother?"

"I'm sorry, Winry," finished Edward. "I missed you."

Winry grabbed Ed by the neck and pulled him into a desperate hug. Ed's face blushed red before Winry grabbed Al and pulled him into the embrace.

"For the record," I said in the awkward silence those of us not sharing the moment were left in, "that's former State Alchemist. No one's invading this world. We came on our own."

Edward Elric was the first to break the embrace. "We have to get off this train," he said. "Al and I managed to knock out a few guards while we were searching, but the rest probably noticed by now."

"Searching for what?" I asked. "You didn't know we were here."

"They were coming to rescue me," said the prisoner who had called out for the brothers to stop fighting. She was a dark skinned woman who bore a bit of a resemblance to Rose.

"The Nazis captured Noah," said Al. "Lucky they didn't realize who she is or what she can do."

A dozen armed men arrived at the door to our car at that point and pointed machine-guns in at us. They opened fire immediately. The Elric brothers dropped prone and pulled Winry to the floor with them. Noah rushed back toward the other prisoners and took a bullet in her back and dropped.

I charged the gunmen, who were clustered tightly together to shoot through the same door. Their bullets chewed through my body armor, and I felt two bullets go into my stomach, and a third hit my left arm. With my inhuman strength combined with the added mass of the equipment I was carrying, I was able to charge through the cluster of soldiers, knocking them all to the ground.

Sloth followed after me, delivering knock-out blows to some of the men I'd stunned. One of them got his weapon up in time to shoot her, but it was absorbed by her body armor and didn't slow her down.

"She's still breathing" called out Winry as Sloth and I finished knocking the Nazi soldiers unconscious. Winry had made her way over to where Noah had fallen and was assessing the damage.

I looked at my left arm. Sloth was going to kill me if I lost another limb. Fortunately, the bullet seemed to have passes straight through the muscle and I could still move it.

"Is she going to be okay?" asked Alphonse.

Winry frowned and shook her head. "The bullet hit a major artery. She's bleeding internally.

"No," said Edward in a near whisper. "Damnit." Tears welled up in the young man's eyes.

"Give me your stones," I said to Sloth as I turned toward where Noah had fallen. Sloth reached into her beltpouch and handed me the jar of red stones we'd brought in case of an emergency. We were both agreed this qualified. I pulled out my own stones and walked past the Elric brothers and kneeled in front of Noah, across from Winry.

Getting a look at Noah's wound, I held both jars over her body. Blue alchemic light poured from the stones as I tried to knit the worst of her injuries. One stone would have been enough in our world, but here, where they had to provide all the energy for the transmutation in addition to compensating for my less than perfect knowledge of her specific body, I was worried we might not have enough stones.

In the blue light, the bullet backed out of her wound, blood flowed back into her arteries, and ruptured tissues sealed themselves. The wound vanished before a speechless audience of prisoners, and Noah opened her eyes.

"He's using red stones to power a transmutation on this side of the Gate," said Edward.

"But that means..." started Alphonse.

I'd been through this conversation enough times. I handed a jar to each of the brothers. "Stones made using humans disappear when they're used up. These were made with the Tringam method."

Both brothers glanced briefly at the dead stones. It had taken every mote of power to heal Noah. Now that we'd found Ed and Al, hopefully we could get them back to the farmhouse without needing further alchemy.

"More alchemists," said Noah as she sat up. "Can you help us escape this world and its wars? Or are you trapped here too?"

"This was a rescue mission," I said. "We have a plan to get back to our world with you two, but it isn't exactly suited to mass transit."

"It doesn't matter. We're not going," said Edward. "I appreciate the effort, but you should go home yourselves. There's still something we have to do here."

"You mean the Nazi philosopher stone?" asked Winry. Ed and Al stared in shock. This was clearly the first they'd heard of it.

"The Nazis are moving prisoners and red water precursors to one of their camps," I explained. "That's where this train is bound."

"They're going to kill all the prisoners," said Alphonse.

"No, they're not," said Edward.

"Winry," I said, "we're going to need to move faster now that Fullmetal's alerted the guards."

"You think this is my fault?" demanded Edward, raising a fist in my direction.

"Get the prisoners armed with the weapons we took from the Nazis. They can guard the soldiers while we advance," I continued.

"Quit ignoring me," demanded Edward as he leapt at me only to be restrained by his brother. "I'll show you who's incompetent! Take one step closer, and I'll feed you your teeth!"

"Brother," said Al placatingly. "He wasn't saying anything like that. Calm down."

Relaxing, Edward was released by his brother and said, "You're right, Al. Let's just deal with the train."

Edward, Alphonse, and I joined Sloth where she was standing guarding the door. Winry and Noah got busy arming the prisoners.

"I don't think you're incompetent, Ed," I said in an attempt to clear the air. "In fact, you're one of my heroes. You're the reason I got into alchemy in the first place."

"Really?" said Edward, leaning back and soaking up the praise. "I guess I did build up quite a reputation."

"You helped a lot of people, big brother," said Sloth, removing her helmet so Ed and Al could get a good look at her face for the first time.

Ed and Al froze at her words.

"Nina?" asked Alphonse in a quiet voice.

"Tucker's doll," said Edward. Then to Alphonse, "That's not Nina."

Sloth put a calming hand on my arm and said, "That's right, big brother, I'm not."

"Don't call me that!" snapped Edward.

Looking as though she'd been slapped, Sloth continued to nonverbally hold me back from rushing to her defense. "You're right, Edward. I'm sorry. I have some of her memories, but I'm not the same girl you made less lonely studying for your alchemy exam. It's just... sometimes it's hard to keep it all straight."

"But I thought Mr. Tucker failed," said Alphonse.

"And what happens when an alchemist fails to bring someone back to life?" I prompted.

"You're a homonculus?" guessed Alphonse.

"The oroboros is on my back," replied Sloth. "I'd show you, but the body armor takes too long to get on and off."

"And why are you here?" demanded Ed.

Another wrench sailed over Sloth's head and nailed Edward in the forehead, taking him completely by surprise.

"She's helping rescue you, you idiot! How many times do we have to explain this?"

"You don't have to throw tools at my head!"

"Apparently it's the only thing that gets through to you!"

Sloth, Alphonse, and I stood at the sidelines of their shouting match, and all sighed in unison.

"Sorry about my brother," said Al. "Losing Nina was hard on both of us. I think he still blames himself for not realizing what was going to happen sooner."

"I understand, Alphonse. Nina looked up to both of you, and even if you couldn't stop what happened, you did make her life better."

Tears welled up in Al's eyes, but his voice stayed steady. "I guess this means you're the product of when I was used as a philosopher's stone."

"I'm sorry about that," said Sloth. "I saw what happened to your body when I was made, but I didn't understand it until later."

"It's not your fault," said Al. "You weren't the one that did it."

"Can we have the reunions after we're not en-route to a death camp anymore?" asked Noah, butting in. The five of us looked at her sheepishly and nodded.

. . .

We moved more quickly with the prisoners following behind us and securing the guards. Sloth and I would rush through a door, drawing Nazi fire. Ed and Al would wait a heartbeat and follow. Their martial arts training let them subdue the distracted Nazis quickly and efficiently. Sloth and I suffered a handful of grazes, but thanks to how fast we were moving, the enemy never got an accurate shot off.

The prisoners struggled to keep pace with securing the cars we cleared. We managed to capture over a hundred Nazi soldiers and liberate almost a thousand prisoners by the time we took the engine and brought the train to a stop.

"Okay, Noah," said Edward while we waited for the resistance to arrive and help relocate the prisoners. "Time to do your thing."

Noah nodded and started walking among the bound Nazi prisoners, placing her hands on their faces.

"What's she doing?" I asked.

"Noah has the power to look into people's minds," said Alphonse. "We've been using it to try and track down the Uranium bomb, but she could help us get inside the place they're making the Stone too."

"Uranium bomb?" I asked.

"A weapon that was brought through the Gate from our world," explained Edward. Thule had it at one point, and we've been trying to find it since we closed the Gate."

Alphonse added, "It could create destruction on the same scale as Liore without using alchemy. That's part of why Ed felt like he had to come back."

"I've never heard of this weapon," I said.

"That's because Al and I stopped the inventor from selling it. He failed a human transmutation fighting us, and disappeared through the Gate."

"Then you blew up his fortress," added Al. "And barely left us time to get out."

"Did you have any leads on the bomb?" asked Sloth, stalling an argument between the brothers.

"We have a photograph of the bomb being handed over to the Nazis, but they haven't used it during the war," said Edward.

"They've been mining Uranium, so we think they want to build more before they demonstrate what the bomb can do," added Al.

"I have the passwords, site layouts, and schedules you need," reported Noah.

"That's a neat trick," I acknowledged.

"Not as much as healing a bullet wound," replied Noah in a flirty tone. "Thanks."

"He's spoken for," said Sloth, wrapping her arms around my leg.

I put a hand on the side of Sloth's head, and returned the embrace as best our heights would allow with us both standing. "That's true. Let's keep things professional. You're welcome, though."

Noah blinked at that. "The two of you...?"

"A little over a year now," I said happily. "Longer if you count all the time we spent trying to kill each other."

"But you can't be more than five years old," protested Noah.

"I'm not human," said Sloth, annoyed. "You did pick up on that, right?"

"Remember what I told you about Thule's 'Great Serpent'?" asked Edward. "She's the same kind of being."

"Envy," added Alphonse, helpfully, for Sloth, Winry, and I.

"We have a lot of notes to compare," I offered. "Maybe we should just sit down when we're back at base, each tell our story, then figure out our next move together."

Noah continued to eye Sloth and I skeptically, but nodded her assent when Ed and Al agreed. The French Resistance arrived shortly thereafter to sort out the prisoner situation and provide the six of us a ride back to the farmhouse.

. . .

Author's comments:  
The reunion has finally happened, and the Elric brothers are now working together with Sloth and Greed. New priorities have appeared, and this interdimensional rescue mission has somehow gotten even more complicated.


	35. The Nazi Lab

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 35) The Nazi Lab  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Alphonse served as the primary storyteller for his and his brother's exploits. Edward filled in details, but Al kept the narrative on track. I'd pieced together some of their journey, but a lot of it, I was hearing for the first time. sloth and I held our tongues and let them get through the parts of their tale dealing with Liore and the Tucker family. Winry looked as though she was hearing much of this for the first time as well, and Al frequently paused and apologized to her for all the secrets kept for fear of worrying her.

I told my tale next, with Sloth slipping in her point of view as I went. The brothers were disturbed at what they learned about Shao's continued activity. Edward in particular, declared he should have taken a few minutes out to kick Shao's ass before confronting Dante. Sloth's ongoing identity crisis elicited empathy from Alphonse, who'd struggled with many of the same fears. Both brothers were pleased to learn that things had gone well for Russel and Fletcher Tringam. When I described my human transmutation attempt, their expressions became unreadable, but they were undeniably sympathetic about the repeated rejections that came after.

Noah didn't understand any more than I had why so many people rejected my offer of healing and potential immortality. Edward noted that while he'd have considered my offer a godsend for Al when he was still bound to the armor, he didn't think it was worth it for a simple limb restoration.

When I described my rescue of Sloth and our subsequent romantic involvement, Noah looked like she didn't know what to say, given the new context. Al, who'd been thoughtfully considering Sloth's point of view the entire time said he was happy for us.

Both brothers wept openly when I described Izumi's sacrifice and her reconciliation with Wrath. The story ended with our preparations to cross the Gate and return them home.

"We can't leave yet," said Edward. "The Uranium bomb is still out there, and the Nazis are making a philosopher's stone to add alchemic weapons to their arsenal."

"I agree, we need to stop them," I said. "We should also try to recover any red stones they've already made, since I'm not sure how many we'll need to open the Gate on this side, and we've been burning through what we brought."

"From what you've told me," interrupted Noah, "the Jews and Gypsies in that camp are being sacrificed to make these stones. I thought you didn't approve of that."  
"They're already dead," I declared. "And I'm pretty sure the process isn't reversible."

"Tucker used the same argument to get me to go along with his plans," said Ed.

"The difference is, I'm not planning on hiding some living people in with the red water," I retorted.

"Do we even need their red stones?" asked Al. "I thought you said you were already making more."

"We're about a week away from our first handful," said Sloth. "We're using them up faster than we can make them."

"Besides," I added, "any stones we take, the Nazis can't use later."

"Alright," said Edward. "We're in. Noah?"

In response, she retrieved a notebook and started going over the information she'd gleaned from the soldiers' minds. Schedules, names of staff, guard patrols, numbers of guards at the camp, the locations of stops along the way. Everything we needed to sneak into Germany proper, reach the camp, and bypass the outer defenses.

"You're going to need to teach me how to do that mind reading trick," I said when she was finished.

"It's something I was born with," she replied. "I don't think it's something I can teach."

"That is really unfair," I pouted. Sloth smiled and patted me on the arm.

"There's one more thing," said Noah. "One of the guards knew about a shipment of Uranium."

"Where's it going?" asked Al.

"Here," said Noah, indicating a map.

"If either one of those projects succeeds," said Edward, "the Nazis win the war."

"We don't know which one's closer to being ready," pointed out Al.

"Then we'll need to split into two teams and take out both at once," declared Winry.

"Wait," said Ed. "You can't go with us."

Smiling sweetly, Winry said, "Oh, that's fine. You two go deal with the Stone, and I'll be on the team that goes after the bomb."

"Winry, I don't want you to get hurt," said Alphonse.

"Is this important? Stopping these Nazi projects?" asked Winry. "Because if it isn't, we can use the stones we have, open the Gate and go home now."

Neither brother had an answer to that.

"I should go with Winry," said Noah. "You have what you need to get into the camp, but once we get to where the Uranium's being shipped, we'll probably need more information."

"I'll go with them," offered Sloth. "Winry and Noah will need protection. Besides... you might find my father at the camp, and I'd rather not be there for that."

"Stay safe out there," I told Sloth, then retrieved Shao's severed arm. I broke off three fingers, handing one each to Ed and Al. "I presume you know what to do with these?"

Edward grimaced, but nodded, "Yeah."

"We're not going to kill him, are we?" asked Al in alarm.

"Only as a last resort," I said with a glance over to Sloth. "If we can capture and hold him, that'll be better."

"If we can't," said Edward grimly, "I'll do it."

"We might be wrong about who's behind this," I reminded everyone. "The remains are just in case."

. . .

Edward drove the car while Alphonse and I compared notes on alchemy. He walked me through the theory he;d used when burning out the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect Edward. It turned out his ability to imbue a portion of his soul into a suit of armor and effectively be in two places at once for a short time was an effect of his experiences having his soul attached to various things over the years, and wasn't something I could learn myself. At least without risking my soul becoming permanently detached from my homonculus body.

Ed talked about Thule's attempts to open the Gate, and showed me the array they'd used to send their people to Liore. It was more sophisticated than I'd imagined, which Ed attributed to Hohenheim helping them. Opening the Gate with that array wouldn't require a sacrifice, and no one but those passing through would be exposed to the Gate Children, or the omniscience effect that Ed and Al called the Truth. Ed also described the arrays Thule used on Envy to let them access the alchemic energy stored in the red stones inside his body. If things went particularly wrong, those arrays could be used to let Sloth and I power a transmutation here.

Noah's information let us bypass checkpoints and reach the camp itself without being detected or raising alarm. We parked the car well outside of view of the camp's watch towers, then proceeded on foot. Once we were in a position to see the camp without being seen ourselves, the three of us hunkered down, observed the patrol's, and waited for cover of darkness.

When the time came, I took point and carefully picked my way through the field surrounding the camp. I didn't want to get blown up by another landmine, but it'd be even worse if Ed or Al did. We reached a razor wire topped fence, and Al boosted Edward up o the top of it. He boosted me next. We both balanced on top of the fence and used our automail limbs to hold open a gap in the wire for Al to climb through before we dropped down ourselves.

Noah's information indicated the processing equipment was underground, to keep it from being detected by spy planes. In the pitch black, the yard had enough cover to let us reach the building that had the tunnel entrance undetected. The defenses for the camp were centered around keeping people in, not out.

Al and I stood watch while Edward picked the lock an got us inside the building. A half-asleep guard started to alertness as we entered, only to be knocked cold by my automail fist before he could raise the alarm. Al locked the door behind us and I recovered the guard's keys.

"It's weird," I said in a low voice, glancing at one of the security mirrors in the hallway. "Even at secure bases like this, I haven't seen a single security camera."

"It's like automail," said Edward. "It works fine on this side of the Gate, but they just never invented them."

"And like those airships work in our world, but we didn't invent them," added Al.

The three of us advanced deeper into the facility. Without warning, one of us must've triggered a trap, because a half dozen axe blades emerged from the walls. Edward went low, dodging under a swinging blade. Alphonse went high, hopping over one and dropping into a roll. I braced my automail forearm with my flesh and blood left hand and met one of the swinging blades straight on. It glanced off the metal plate, and a large chunk of material broke off the axe at the point of impact.

Al came down at the trigger for another trap, and a pitfall opened beneath him. Edward reached him in time and caught his brother's arm before he dropped down the pit.

"They probably know we're here now," I suggested when Al was back out of the pitfall.

"They wouldn't put traps like this in if they didn't expect them to do the job," noted Edward. "Just in case, though, keep an eye out for undead serial killers. This reminds me too much of Lab 5."

We moved more carefully from that point and avoided triggering more traps as we descended into the bowels of the facility. Eventually, we came to a high ceilinged room with columns.

"Way too much of Lab 5," muttered Ed as we carefully crossed the room toward a door at the opposite side.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Ed and Al looked like they'd seen something too. Suddenly, a group of six men dropped from above, surrounding us and aiming machine-guns in our direction. They wore Nazi uniforms and had short hair. There was something off about their features. Their arms were just a little too long. Their heads were a little too wide, and their brows slightly sloped.

Held at gunpoint, the three of us raised our hands. We backed up slowly into one another until we were in a circle, back to back.

"I guess now you'll want to take us to your leader," said Edward with a smirk.

They responded with silence. From their slightly misshapen throats, I wondered if they were capable of speech. Three hung back and covered their comrades as the other three approached us. Al casually touched his hands together over his head, and Ed and I followed suit. Once they were in range, we made our move.

I grabbed the barrel of the gun aimed at me, using the red stones in my pocket to fuel the transmutation of the weapon into a set of crude bindings holding my would-be captor. Edward slapped his guard in the chest, and inflated his uniform like a balloon, causing him to drop his weapon and providing additional cover against the others with his expanded profile. Alphonse dropped to the ground and slapped the floor, opening a pit under his opponent just large enough for him to fall into, and still tight enough to pin his arms to his sides.

The three soldiers who weren't trapped opened fire. Ed and Al went low, rolling toward the other two, and managed to get in close and knock the weapons out of the hands of their chosen opponents without being hit by gunfire. I grabbed the soldier I'd bound with alchemy and hurled him straight at the one shooting at me. He fell on top of his comrade and the gun skidded away across the floor. I'd been shot in the fleshy part of my left thigh, but not bad enough I would lose another limb.

The disarmed soldiers scrambled out of melee range with superhuman speed and agility, then they drew backup weapons. The weapons were peculiar, composed of a metal cylinder six inches long and about an inch in diameter, with engravings running its length. As they gripped them, the engravings glowed with the familiar red light of a red stone fueled transmutation circle. A beam of red light extended from one end of the cylinder about three feet.

"They're breaking down air molecules as they come into contact with that zone," said Edward as he sniffed the air.

"Looks like we were right about Nazi alchemic weaponry," I said grimly.

Edward clapped his hands and transmuted a panel on his automail forearm into a blade and rushed at the soldiers. Alphonse followed the charge unarmed. I mimicked Edward's transmutation and charged with them.

The soldiers swung their weapons like swords as we reached them. Edward ducked below the swing of his opponent, losing a lock of hair that was sticking up and managed to slash upward across his enemy's chest. It wasn't deep, but it made him leap backward again to try and escape Ed's attacks.

Al likewise went low, taking his opponent's legs out from under him with a sliding tackle. Both opponents regained their feet quickly. Al adopted a defensive martial arts stance and began circling his opponent. The enemy kept his blade up in a defensive pose of his own.

I didn't have the finesse or combat experience of the two brothers. What I did have was superior strength and speed, and a training focus on disruptive alchemy. I braced my automail arm with my organic left one, and charged my opponent. When he raised his blade, I put my own blade through a series of transmutations. Glowing with blue alchemic light, my sword clashed against his red beam of destruction alchemy, and I was able to push him backward.

Ed picked up on what I'd done instantly and clapped his hands, causing his own blade to glow blue for an instant as he blocked a blow and punched his opponent in the face. Al's opponent charged in, and the younger Elric brother stepped inside the swing and struck his enemy in the stomach hard enough to send him flying backward. My opponent headbutted me over our clashing blades. I smirked and headbutted him right back, causing him to stagger backward.

Seeing an opening, I rushed forward to finish the job, thrusting forward with the blade on my arm, only to be surprised when my opponent recovered faster than expected. He swung low before I could even try to block, and his red blade cut me in half at the waist. Viscera spilled out of my severed torso as my legs fell in the opposite direction.

My opponent joined Edward's and they began to double-team him. I clapped my hands and tried to block them off their feet, but my red stones were used up, and I could only watch as the fight unfolded.

Ed and Al moved together to support one another. Ed would block, Al would stagger, Al would dodge, Ed would slash. The Nazis were on the defensive even with me able to do no more than cheer them both on. Whenever Ed or Al would start a transmutation, they'd rush in to keep them from having time to finish it, but otherwise, they tried to stay out of range and wear the alchemists down. It was a winning strategy.

The soldiers, obviously chimeras of some type, fought harder and longer than the all too human Elrics could. And eventually, the red stones letting Ed keep blocking their alchemic weapons ran out as well. One of the chimeras neatly severed Ed's automail arm at the elbow as he tried to block with it. A moment later, glowing blades of red alchemic light were next to Ed and Al's necks. The fight was over. Ed and Al were restrained, and the half of me that was still moving was dragged along contemptuously by one of the chimeras. We were chained to a wall in a cell and left there to await our fate.

. . .

"Why do we keep getting tossed in jail, Al?" asked Edward.

"If it's any consolation," I offered, "this seems to happen to me an awful lot too."

"Hopefully not including getting cut in half," offered Al.

"No, that's a new one. Sloth's gonna be pissed." I looked down at the trail of organs dangling out of my torso that was suspended from the wall by wrist manacles. "Still, less painful than getting the replacement parts installed will be."

Edward laughed. "I'll bet you're regretting coming after us now."

"Actually, my only regret is I never got the chance to visit a library while I was here. There must be so much scientific knowledge we never even considered here."  
"I sort of regret getting captured and chained up in a Philosopher's Stone lab," said Al.

"I don't think they're going to use us for raw material," said Ed. "They'll want to interrogate us first."

"Interrogate?" asked Al with a quiver in his voice. "I know the two of you have a ridiculous pain threshold, but I spent all those years with no sense of touch at all."

"Don't worry, Al. It won't come to that. We're getting out of here." Ed's features hardened.

"What's your plan?" I asked him.

"When the guard comes in here, we kick him in the face and break out!" he declared enthusiastically.

"Brother," noted Al, "they chained our legs to the wall too."

"Well I don't hear you coming up with anything better!" yelled Edward.

"Hello, Edward. Alphonse. Greed was it?" came a quiet voice that silenced Ed's shouts and sent a chill down what was left of my spine. Shao Tucker, formerly the Sewing Life Alchemist, stepped into view flanked by two of the humanoid chimeras that had captured us. Shao wore a Nazi uniform and a wide brimmed hat that covered the oroboros mark on his forehead.

Ed's expression changed in an instant. He stopped flailing and yelling, and instead gritted his teeth and stared at Shao. The show anger was gone, replaced by an expression of such utter contempt it nearly matched what I'd seen on Scar's face during the brief time I'd known him. Ed's voice came out ice cold with a hard edge. "Tucker. You're lucky I'm chained to this wall. After what you did to Al. And what you did to your own daughter. Both of them."

"What are you doing here, Mr. Tucker?" asked Alphonse. He wasn't any happier to see Shao than Edward was, but Alphonse wasn't going to let that get in the way of getting answers. I admired that, even if my own inclinations were closer to Edward's.

"I'm putting my life back together," said Shao.

"By murdering more people for the Stone?" I spat.

"The German government is funding my research," he replied. "They've been more loyal and understanding patrons than the military government back home. On top of that, my wife is still alive here."

"There are people here who look like people from our worked, but they aren't the same people," said Alphonse.

"He knows," I said with undisguised contempt. "People are replaceable and interchangeable to him."

"When you crossed the Gate after me," Shao asked, "did you bring Nina with you?"

"You can't hurt her anymore," I declared with a flash of anger that caused the two chimera guards to take a step back. It took me a moment to realize what they were reacting to. My skin had turned pale. Running my tongue over my teeth, I found them to be sharp and pointed. No doubt they'd also seen my hair turn black, and my contemptuous gaze was now staring out of violet, slitted eyes. The red stones on Shao and the guards must've made it possible.

Shao just smiled and said, "There's a point of scientific curiosity you boys can help me with. I have more of the stone material here than I did at Laboratory Five, but actually finishing a Philosopher Stone has been fatal for every alchemist I've ever heard of making the attempt."

"So rather than risk your own skin, you're going to try to make us do your dirty work for you," spat Edward contemptuously.

"I don't know the details of Hohenheim's original death, and Scar wasn't in the best condition before his death, was he Alphonse?"

"And if they die making the Stone," I said, "the next step is to see if I survive it with my regeneration."

"Actually, I wanted to test you first," said Shao. "If you don't survive the process, there'd be no point testing it on the boys. Besides, you're much easier to persuade to cooperate."

One of the chimera guards approached, ignited his glowing red alchemic blade, and deftly cut open my shirt, exposing the oroboros mark in the center of my chest. The guard then stepped back and Shao stepped forward, extending a hand toward me, and preparing to do to me what he'd done to Sloth.

My eyes widened in fear as he got closer than I was comfortable with to snuffing out my free will. Then, my expression twisted into a smirk. I regenerated my legs in an instant, burning through the stored power of the red stones Shao was carrying. I kicked Shao i the nose with my bare heel hard enough to take the head clean off a normal human. As it was, it broke his nose and caused him to stagger backward.

Shao's chimera guards ignited their glowing red blades and rushed at me. I kicked one of the chimeras toward Edward and managed to angle it so his energy blade cut through the chain binding Ed's wrist. Ed wasted no time in disarming his staggered opponent. when the hilt left the chimera's hand, it went dark. When Ed gripped it, the blade flashed back to life blazing blue, and he quickly cut the rest of his bindings.

The second chimera came in with a swing I was able to use to sever my left arm at the elbow. I regenerated the left arm, then popped a latch to disconnect my automail right arm from its shoulder socket, freeing me from the remaining chains. Not really comprehending what he was dealing with, the chimera hesitated, which left me an opening. I kicked him in the chest and sent him flying backward into Shao. I caught his dropped weapon as he flew back and cut Alphonse free with the glowing blue energy blade.

Shao recovered and made a move to flee, but Alphonse thought quick and grabbed the finger from Shao's chimera body out of his pocket and threw it at the homonculus. On contact, Shao was paralyzed and vulnerable. Al clapped his hands and turned the door to this holding cell into just another part of the wall, hopefully slowing down any reinforcements Shao had coming.

Edward feinted with his captured weapon towards his opponent, then shut down the blade of deconstruction alchemy mid swing, instead striking his opponent hard on the top of the head with the hilt. It wasn't hard enough and the chimera grabbed Edward's head in a vice-like grasp and lifted him off his feet. In a flash, Ed's blade glowed blue again and he'd severed the chimera's arm.

I made no pretense at mercy, and instead cut the other chimera in half at the waist as they'd done to me. Unlike me, he didn't get back up. While Al moved to assist Edward, I cut the chain still holding my detached automail right arm. I then switched off the weapon, dropped it into my waistband and picked up the mechanical limb.

Ed and Al had managed to beat the chimera unconscious. I tossed Edward the limb. "It might not be a perfect fit, but it's still Rockbell automail, and should get you through until we're back at base," I said.

"Aren't you gonna need this?" asked Ed.

"No," I said as I gripped the socket Winry had built into my shoulder and ripped it out along with a goodly amount of flesh and bone. It hurt like hell, but still less than reattaching the automail would have. Plus, now I could regenerate the arm.

Ed nodded, detached what remained of his own limb and forced mine into the socket with only a grunt to acknowledge the pain. We were all whole again.

Shao still laid on the floor, the severed finger of his original corpse keeping him paralyzed while in contact with his body. I patted him down and retrieved a few dozen red stones being kept in various pockets as well as ID papers. Voices on the other side of the wall told us time was running out and Shao's backup was here.

"We can't drag him out through those guards," said Alphonse urgently.

"We don't need to, Al," said Ed with a smirk. He clapped his hands and slapped them against the floor. Blue sparks flew off as the floor collapsed beneath us, dumping us into a utility tunnel of some sort. I barely had time to grab Shao and hold the remains to his flesh. I needn't have bothered.

The utility tunnel was filled with red water, and on contact, all four of us were flooded with alchemic energy even as new ideas for using that energy flooded into our minds almost as quickly. Shao used the flood of power to deconstruct the finger that held him paralyzed and to create a dozen insectoid chimeras from unseen creatures clinging to the ceiling of the tunnel. I blasted his chimeras out o existence as quickly as he made them. Stone spikes impaled Shao as elaborate chains bound him from what I assumed were the Elric brothers.

Somehow, this much exposure to the stone material was acting like a microcosm of the Gate. It was overwhelming, enlightening, and hard to turn away from even if it was killing you. I'd trained for this sort of situation specifically, so I was more aware than the other three. Particularly of the fact that all our heads were submerged in the red water. Ed and Al were going to drown.

I blasted a tunnel out of the wall of the pipe we were in using the enhanced alchemic power I currently enjoyed and manipulated the current to drag Ed, Al, and myself away from Shao. Ed and Al kept fighting Shao, countering his creations with their own alchemy, oblivious to my rescue attempt. I built the tunnel for half a mile with alchemy until it finally burst out the side of a hill and poured us out in a torrent of red water.

The Elrics calmed down as I dragged them out of the flow and started using the stone material clinging to my hair and clothes to deconstruct the material that might be poisoning Ed and Al's systems. Ed and Al coughed up the red water in their lungs as I continued to deconstruct it and mused on how much of the stuff I'd swallowed. Certainly more than enough to make up for what I used regenerating.

"I screwed up," admitted Ed. "We had that bastard, and now he's free because I had to show off."

"You had no way of knowing that's where he was keeping the red water," I said. "And we weren't going to win another fight outnumbered by those chimeras."

"At least we set back his operation," observed Al, indicating the diminishing trickle of red water dribbling out of our escape tunnel.

"All that means is that sick bastard is going to kill more people to replenish his stock," yelled Ed.

"So, what do we do now?" I asked.

"Why are you asking me?" Edward moped.

"Well, it was your plan that got us out of those chains back there," I observed wryly.

After a moment to process, that got a smile from Edward. "Okay, we've established we can't beat all his goons alone, so we get more people. There's already a grand alliance at war with Shao's backers. We just need to point them in the right direction."

"We know he won't have a stone by then," I added optimistically. "He's a coward. He won't risk trying to make one himself. Instead, he's likely to try and capture one of us to do it for him."

"Which means more resources thrown at us instead of fighting the allies," noted Al hopefully.

"We'll just have to stop being so subtle so Tucker'll know where to waste his forces," said Ed with a smirk.

"Once we've worn him down," I added, holding up Shao's papers, "we'll know where to find him."

. . .

The car pulled back in to the safehouse loaded down with red stones we'd salvaged. Winry, Noah, and Sloth had beaten us back home.

"How'd things go?" asked Winry as we got out.

"We confirmed Shao was the one responsible," I said.

"Is he...?" began Sloth.

"He's still alive," spat Edward.

"We were captured," said Al. "We managed to get out and bring back a lot of his red stones."

"How did your mission go?" asked Ed with a weak smile.

"Unlike some people," declared Winry dramatically, "we got the Uranium and Noah found out where the bomb's being made."

"Good job, Winry," replied Ed weakly rather than rising to her obvious bait.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Sloth with concern.

"He almost changed me when we were captured," I said putting my hand over my oroboros, "but we got out in time. Plus, I got to regenerate using his stones." I wiggled my fingers.

"We're just tired," said Al.

"Get some rest," suggested Winry. "We'll come up with a new plan tomorrow."

. . .

When Sloth and I were alone, I asked, "How are you?"

"We finished our mission," she started to joke. Turning more serious, she continued, "I was hoping he'd be dead. That you'd find it wasn't him, or that you'd find him and kill him before I got back here. That's awful, isn't it, Greed?"

"He hurt you as much as anyone. You've got a right to want this to be over," I answered, taking her in my arms and holding her tight.

"I'm the one who told you not to kill him," she choked out.

I shook my head. "By the time we had the chance to finish him off, it would've been in cold blood, and I don't know if I've got that in me. So don't even think you're to blame for what happened."

"I'm not. It's just... Now I'm going to have to face him. Last time..."

"Shh," I said, stroking her hair. "I won't let that happen. Not again. Not even if it means I have to blow up his whole base with that uranium bomb to stop him."

Sloth let herself be soothed and relaxed in my arms. After a while, she said, "I'm sorry, Greed. You were the one who's just been through something and you're the one comforting me when it should be the other way around."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Just being here with you and knowing you're safe helps."

"But I do have something that'll cheer you up," she protested. "In all the stress and excitement, I think you've lost track of time. Tomorrow we can harvest our philosopher's flowers."

"I just brought back enough red stones to open the Gate, regenerate our whole bodies ten times over, and have plenty left for routine alchemy," I noted with a small smile.

"Yes," said Sloth with a smug tone, "but tomorrow we confirm if the Tringam method works here, something we don't know for sure now."

"Marcho's method works here," I argued, playfully trying to cover up the fact that I really was interested in the answer. I couldn't help myself and added, "but is that because the human lives are providing the energy in that case, and whether the plants work or not, what will that say about the nature of alchemy?"

Sloth smiled and nuzzled closer to me. "Told you I knew something that'd make you feel better."

"Have I told you I love you lately?"

"Have I?"" she retorted.

We snuggled together and waited until morning, drifting off to sleep in one another's arms at some point.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Yes, that's Nazi Chimera Supersoldiers armed with Alchemy powered Light Sabers. You're welcome.


	36. Science

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 36) Science  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

"Time to find out if we're going to be dependent on stealing Shao's red stones, or if we can set up our own resource base," I cheerfully greeted Ed, Al, Winry, and Noah who'd gathered around the table for breakfast.

"The protective suits we stole for dealing with the uranium should work for the lab too," suggested Winry.

While the humans suited up, Sloth and I headed into the lab. The petals on the philosopher's flowers we'd grown had completely changed color, indicating they'd reached full saturation. The other four entered wearing grey full body suits with glass face plates. Sloth extracted the plants from the machine they were growing inside and handed them to be.

I took a knife and carefully slit open the stalk of one of the plants along its side. As usual, the toxic minerals in the red water had collected into a mass about the size of a human thumb. When I extracted it, however, it was grey and crumbled in my hand like the spent stones had. They were all like that, none having properly bonded into an alchemic amplifier.

"Makes sense," said Edward. "In our world, this process collects ambient energy and concentrates it. Here, that energy isn't available."

"But Marcho's method doesn't rely on that?" I asked.

Ed shook his head. "Marcho and the Grand Arcanum convert human lives directly into a stone, using them to provide the energy. Your flowers might work if you planted them in a battlefield, assuming part of the energy released when someone dies isn't channeled through the Gate to fuel alchemy in our world."

"Channeled through the Gate?" asked Alphonse.

"Something dad told me," replied Ed. "All alchemy's fueled by death. The stone's just more direct about it. When people die in this world, their lives become energy that passes through the Gate and is used for transmutation in ours."

"What happens to the people who die back home?" I asked.

Ed shrugged. "I didn't ask."

"How did Hohenheim know that?" I pressed. "I put a lot of effort into making sure my restoration wouldn't cost people's lives, and now you're saying every transmutation does anyway?"

"It's a hard pill to swallow," said Ed not unsympathetically. "The single best alchemist on the planet, with four centuries of research under his belt, who invented homonculi and the Philosopher's Stone, and just finished a trip through the Gate. Believe what you want, but the energy for alchemy has to come from somewhere."

"A would-be immortal who stole people's lives to extend his own, and created a Philosopher's Stone at least twice, sacrificing thousands to his own ambition wants to justify what he spent his life doing as no different from the rest of us," I replied, bitterly recalling the handiwork of Hohenheim of Light I'd encountered before crossing the Gate.

Alphonse and Winry tensed, seemingly worried for my safety, but Edward just shrugged. "Like I said, believe what you want. God knows I spent years hating him. It doesn't really matter. While we're here, any alchemy we use is fueled by human lives, so we're going to need to make sure it's worth it."

As Edward spoke, he took a wood dowel and carved an array on it that reminded me of the Grand Arcanum. He hollowed out a section near the base to hold a red stone. Then, he tossed it to me.

"Brother?" asked Al.

Indicating the object I was holding, Ed explained, "That array's based on the one Scar used on his arm. It'll work basically the same as the weapons the chimeras were using, but every person you kill with it charges the stone in the hilt."

"Edward-" began Winry before he cut her off.

"This is a war, Winry," he snapped. "I'm not asking anyone to kill, but I'm lying to myself if I pretend we're all going to get through this without blood on our hands. At least this way, if we do have to kill someone, it'll be less of a complete waste."

Ed walked out, Winry and Al following concerned.

"He's been through a lot since coming here," I said to Noah, not exactly a question.

She shook her head. "He's been through a lot before coming here. It's just now that you brought Winry, he's pushing himself harder trying to do the impossible and keep her safe in all this."

I glanced at Sloth, smiled weakly, and pocketed the weapon. "Why don't you show us the uranium you girls recovered and fill me in on how this bomb's supposed to work."

. . .

Nuclear physics was hard. Not for the first time, I envied Noah's ability to draw knowledge directly from other people's minds. Noah had taken information from some of the Nazi nuclear scientists during the raid that brought back the uranium. As she explained it, the bomb worked by releasing the atomic binding energy in a heavy nucleus as part of the process of converting a single heavy nucleus into a pair or more of lighter nuclei.

Based on some math done by a man named Einstein, the amount of energy involved was enormous. The basic reaction was proven science at this point, the people in this world having done a lot of work on testing the theory. The only question was if a chain reaction could be triggered by assembling a critical mass in a bomb. Edward's encounter with a scientist in our world trying to sell such a bomb to the military seemed to confirm the theory was possible.

Part of the difficulty with building a bomb in this world centered on the difficulty of acquiring and purifying the uranium, since even the material Sloth, Winry, and Noah recovered wasn't pure enough for a bomb. I took a small piece, too small to trigger a chain reaction, and used a red stone to purify it with alchemy, confirming that it was possible.

"Why aren't the Nazis using alchemy to finish the bomb?" asked Sloth when I'd confirmed it was possible.

"The nuclear scientists didn't know about alchemy," offered Noah.

"Given how precise the specifications are for the triggering explosion the Nazis could end up skipping half a dozen steps and have a bomb by the afternoon if they used their alchemy resources on this," I noted. "Instead, they're using it on squads of chimera super soldiers and energy swords."

"My father probably doesn't know about the nuclear program," suggested Sloth. "I think both programs are being kept so secret, no one knows enough to make the suggestion."

"We'd better hope it stays that way," I declared. "The weird thing is, it isn't just the uranium bomb. They don't seem to be using alchemy to help simplify their logistics or resolve material shortages either. It's as though... Shao is their only alchemist!"

"Eckheart and Hohenheim were the only ones really knowledgeable that Thule had," said Noah.

"And my father would be trying to make himself indispensable, and training your replacement doesn't do that," added Sloth.

"Which explains why a mediocre alchemist with poor documentation habits is as prominent as he is now," I concluded.

"If he's kept the knowledge to himself," said Noah," removing him would eliminate any risk of him accelerating the Uranium bomb project."

I shook my head. "We tried that. A small raiding party would only get captured again, and it was luck we got out of there this time. He understands what we can do. If you're right, the people making the bomb don't."

"You want to hit the uranium bomb facility we found?" asked Sloth.

"Hard and with weapons they won't expect or understand," I confirmed. "Before one of them finds out about the other."

. . .

Ed and Al still weren't happy about Winry being with us, but we needed someone who could identify the function of the machines at the lab on sight. We didn't want to risk unsafely damaging a reactor or accidentally setting off a prototype. Noah was along to help us identify scientists with critical information so we'd know who to take prisoner when all was said and done. Ed, Al, Sloth, and I were just muscle.

"Big-Alphonse," said Sloth while Edward drove.

"What is it Nin-Sloth?" said Al. Both stared at their hands for a long moment, embarrassed at their respective slips of the tongue.

"I'll understand if it makes you uncomfortable," began Sloth after that long moment had passed. "It's just, I wouldn't exist without you. I know what my father did to you was wrong, but I want to say, I'm glad I'm alive. And even if it wasn't willing, thank you for making my life possible."

Smiling, Al said in a perked up tone, "I guess this makes us family."

Overjoyed at the acceptance from Alphonse, Sloth dove at Al, hugged him, and buried her face in his chest. She was sobbing tears of relief. How Alphonse felt about her existence must've been really weighing on her. In retrospect, it was easy to see why. She'd basically been the child of a rape, even if that aspect was usually drowned out by other issues in her life. And now, with Alphonse's acknowledgement, she suddenly had a family she could be proud to be associated with.

"You make for a better father than she's had until now," I said to Al with a smile as he gently stroked Sloth's hair soothingly.

"After Nina died," said Alphonse contemplatively, "my brother and I worked harder than ever to make sure what happened to her didn't happen to anyone else."

"That path eventually led you to Liore, where you both saved me from Cornello's lies," I added.

"At least something good came of going to that place," said Edward with a hint of bitterness at the memory.

"I've been following your path for a while, Edward," I said. "You both did good everyplace you went. Maybe not as much as you'd have wanted to, but everywhere you stopped, someone's life got better."

"It's like I keep saying, brother," said Al. "Anyone who's determined and perseveres will get something of value in return, even if it's not what they expected."

"Just this once, Al," said Edward in a frustrated tone that had a hint of good cheer about it, "I'd like it if what we got really was successfully stopping these weapons of mass destruction once and for all like we set out for."

. . .

The Nazi nuclear facility was heavily guarded. Machine-guns with overlapping fields of fire, guard towers, barbed wire topped concrete walls, dozens of soldiers patrolling in pairs and keeping the other patrols in sight. The other bases we'd raided were easy. This place was practically impenetrable. Without alchemy anyway.

I started by transmuting the Ultimate Shield onto Sloth and myself. Regeneration was costly, and there were red stones we could use to return to normal back at base. I also restored the arrays on my shoes for the occasion, both to make sure I didn't trigger anymore landmines, and because I was still more used to using them in a fight than clapping or swordplay.

Sloth and we alchemists had our pockets filled with enough red stones to let us use our powers freely. Holding back on a mission like this would have been madness.

Bearing the visage of bald, grey-skinned demons, Sloth and I charged the front gate. The gunners opened fire immediately, but with the Ultimate Shield, the worst even their heavy anti-tank guns could do was make up stagger. When we got close, I brought my right foot down hard and arcs of blue alchemic light raced ahead of us. The ground below the forward facing guns lifted like a wave and slammed the guns and gunners into the base's concrete wall. While I worked my alchemy Sloth ran ahead, jumped up, grabbed one of the infantrymen by the collar, and pulled him backward using her momentum. Sloth passed through the wall behind the soldier and dragged him halfway along with her, leaving him squirming and pinned inside the wall.

When reinforcements were called up front to deal with us, Ed and Al attacked from behind. Alphonse had transmuted half a dozen suits of armor and animated them. He advanced on the entrenched gunner positions using them as cover. Edward hung back and transmuted a massive earthen fist that slammed into the concrete wall and shattered it, causing fragments of the wall to pepper the Nazi soldiers inside, knocking dozens unconscious.

Between the monstrous appearance and invulnerability Sloth and I displayed, Alphonse's rank of empty armor advancing even as the heavy guns blew off pieces of them, and our alchemy causing the very earth to turn against them, the Nazi soldiers were in a blind panic. When they managed to try to counterattack, they did so alone or in small groups with no real plan of attack. Alphonse got close, disarming and knocking out his opponents before they could rally. Sloth and I focused on the ones who were regaining their nerve, let ourselves get shot, and then made quick work of disabling them. Edward just contemptuously clapped his hands and dropped them into pits, bound them in stone fists, and generally demonstrated why a fully trained State Alchemist is classified as a strategic weapon of mass destruction.

Once we'd secured the courtyard, Winry and Noah advanced. Both did so in stunned silence, staring disbelieving at what was left of our battlefield.

"Is this what it was like, serving in the military back home?" asked Winry.

"If we'd been called in to fight an actual war," said Edward, "it would've looked a lot worse than this."

"I can vouch for that," I added, my appearance causing Winry and Noah to jump, as I was still covered by the Ultimate Shield. "I spent most of my career in the military attempting to rebuild on the ruins of Ishbal."

"They're all still alive," noticed Noah in surprise.

"She was right. Most of the soldiers had been knocked unconscious, and some had shot one another nonfatally in the crossfire, but having full access to our powers meant we were free to fight the way we were most comfortable with, and none of us relished taking lives.

"Like I said," reiterated Edward, "back home where we couldn't count on them panicking because it was their first exposure to combat alchemy, the results would've looked a lot worse."

"They know we're here," said Sloth, getting everyone back on track. "Winry, stay close to Ed and Al. Shout out if you see anyone about to do something stupid. We've only got one technical expert, so we sweep the lab as one group. Noah, hang back out here. You don't need to risk getting hurt down there, and we'll need you once the interior's secure."

I clapped my hands and deconstructed the locking mechanism on the door as I opened it and stepped in, Sloth sliding in beside me. Winry stayed in the center where she could see everyone, and the Elric brothers took up the rear. As a team, we swept through the facility room by room. Most of the soldiers had been outside, either initially or after the fighting was in full swing. Most of the scientists surrendered without a fight.

We'd reached the last room in the facility when four last resort soldiers stood defending the lead scientist among a massive amount of equipment I couldn't immediately guess the use of. The soldiers fired rifles at us immediately. The bullets ricocheted off Sloth and I harmlessly.

"You!" called out Edward, Alphonse, and the lead scientist all at once.

Sloth and I rushed the guards. I clapped as I ran, the ultimate shield deflecting bullets, then I grabbed the gun of the nearest soldier by the barrel and transmuted it into a set of stocks, binding his hands. As I stopped, I planted my foot and a column of concrete rose out of the floor accompanied by blue sparks of alchemic light, and pinned a second guard to the ceiling.

Sloth ran through the guard she charged, sinking his feet an inch into the concrete floor and grabbing his weapons as she went. She charged straight up to the final soldier, pressed the barrel of t he pistol she'd retrieved from his comrade to the bottom of his chin, and his rifle fell right through his fingers and clattered to the ground. He raised both hands in surrender.

While Sloth and I dealt with the guards, Ed and Al charged the lead scientist. He wore a manic expression and lunged for a control console. Edward got there first, clapping his hands as he ran. He touched the console and a wave of blue light passed over the console, causing all the buttons, dials, levers, and switches to vanish, turning the control surfaces into smooth plates of metal. Al tackled the scientist who was sliding a concealed pistol out of his sleeve. When Al landed on top of him, the gun skidded out of his hand and across the floor, where Winry picked it up. She took aim at the scientist who, in response ceased his struggles.

"I thought I was finally rid of your kind and your sorcery!" the scientist declared.

"You know this guy?" asked Winry.

"Meet the inventor of the Uranium bomb," said Edward. "He tried to sell it to the military back home before me and Al stopped him."

"Rather than be captured, he attempted a mass human transmutation and disappeared through the Gate," added Al.

"I'm starting to think all the time I spent working out how to traverse the Gate safely was wasted effort," I noted.

"Your powers shouldn't even work here!" continued the scientist. "I've checked, and alchemy doesn't work in this world!"

"We're better alchemists than you are," I replied. Best to keep him in the dark about the details.

"Well, obviously he's coming with us," said Sloth. "I'll go get Noah and figure out who else here has critical knowledge about the bomb."

. . .

Having gathered the dozen men who knew something useful, we split into three cars confiscated from the base and drove off. We took the Uranium with us and destroyed any of the vital equipment Winry or Noah directed us toward.

We'd made it nearly a hundred feet away from the facility when we heard a peculiar mechanized engine noise of some sort. Ed, Al, and Noah clearly knew what was going on, as they got us all to the side of the road and pulled us and the prisoners into a ditch. I finally saw the source, a kind of flying machine similar to the ones that had attacked Central. As it flew over the facility we'd just left, it released a clutch of bombs that exploded on impact. The facility was reduced to rubble as the machine flew on.

"Well, that's just great!" I yelled, partly out of anger and partly just to compensate for the loud explosions still ringing in everybody's ears. "We attack the place so no one dies, now everyone's dead anyway! We came here to stop their bomb research, turns out if we'd just stayed home the problem would take care of itself! What was the point of any of this except risking the lives of all the humans if we'd taken two more minutes getting underway?"

"Um, you saved our lives," offered one of the Nazi scientists.

"We're not gods," noted Edward. "We can fight and struggle as hard as we can and still lose."

"And we didn't have any way of knowing the allies were going to bomb this place," added Al. "We have to just make the best choice we can with the information we have at the time."

"Come on, Greed," said Sloth, taking my hand. Neither of us could feel it with the Ultimate Shield still there, but the gesture helped all the same. "Let's go home."

. . .

We turned most of the scientists we'd captured over to the French Resistance. Hopefully, they could be smuggled out of Nazi territory and turned over to the allies. What they knew could help the allies target other Nazi nuclear facilities. We kept the lead scientist. He was from our world, and knew too much to be allowed to remain in this one after we'd gone.

We kept a rotating guard watching him, with Sloth and I taking extra shifts, since we didn't need to sleep. When I was alone with the man, he started talking.  
"This is the second time alchemists have thwarted my research. What do you people have against science?"

"Alchemy is science," I replied confused. "Your weapon is designed to kill thousands of people. That's what I have a problem with."

"Alchemy is science? Ha! You draw magic circles and invoke your will accompanied by a light show. Your sorcery has no business calling itself a science."

"It looks like magic if you don't understand it," I admitted, recalling how easily I'd believed Cornello could work miracles, "but it follows rules that we can learn through theory and experimentation. How else would you define a science?"

"You aren't working within the natural world," he shot back. "You call on a power outside it to do your bidding."

"You define the natural world pretty narrowly," I noted.

"Not at all," he countered. "The natural world is vast, and thanks to you alchemists and your stranglehold on power, almost completely unexplored. Our world lacks any conception of aerodynamics which allows heavier than air flight. Despite the obvious value of my discovery, I couldn't get funding for a weapon that would make State Alchemists, and warfare as we know it obsolete."

"And yet, in our world, you built your bomb with no funding in a small mining platform just after you discovered Uranium. In this world, with almost every nation scrambling for a super-weapon, even you can't make another one. There aren't any alchemists to get in your way here... Or rather, there weren't until we showed up. And yet, what do you have to show for it?"

"I'll admit, my initial device made use of some shortcuts. Just because I don't respect your sorcery doesn't mean I can't use it."

"Exactly," I declared. "Despite your protests, the availability of alchemy helped your work. It didn't hinder it."

After a long, contemplative pause, he said, "It doesn't really matter. You've captured me, but too many people are on the path to the bomb now. My creation will be the defining weapon of this world. Even all you State Alchemists together can't overcome a nation armed with nuclear weapons."

"You think we're here to invade?" I asked. "I came through the Gate to rescue stranded people. If Edward hadn't insisted on saving this world from the threat of your bomb, we'd have left by now."

. . .

"He's not wrong," I concluded as I related my conversation to the others. "The idea of the Uranium bomb has already spread too far. Taking him out of the equation will only slow down its development, not stop it."

"What can we do?" asked Sloth.

"Well, we could actually invade," I said with a shrug. "Contact Mustang, relocate a mass of State Alchemists through the Gate and take over the world."

"What?" demanded Alphonse in surprise. "We can't do that."

"There's already a world war going on here," added Edward. "Pulling our world into it won't prevent bloodshed. It'd just make things worse."

"No one's built a successful bomb yet," said Winry. "Doesn't that mean there's still something we can do?"

"I suppose there is one option," I said. "We use the information we have from our prisoner to hunt down all the scientists who are on the right track, recruit or eliminate them one by one, then spread rumors of terrible fates that befall anyone who gets close to this knowledge. Maybe keep it up for the next four hundred years or so."

"You're suggesting we use Dante's plan for suppressing the Stone?" demanded Edward in disgust.

"That's what we're talking about, isn't it? Suppressing knowledge and halting scientific advancement because we think we're more worthy than them to decide who has this knowledge," I shot back.

"And you think the world would be better if everyone knew how to make a Philosopher's Stone for the last four hundred years?" shouted Ed.  
I took a breath, sighed dejectedly, and said, "Yes."

"You're not serious, Greed?" said Sloth.

That hurt, but I pressed on. "No, what he said got me thinking. You all know Ishbal learned the secret of the Stone at some point."

"And their entire culture turned away from alchemy," noted Alphonse.

"Exactly," I noted. "And from what you tell me about Marcho and how you both felt when you realized it, the most common reaction is disgust and horror, and rightly so."

"And you want to spread this information around?" asked Ed.

"Would that really have been worse than the only people who knew being jaded immortals with no feeling of value for human life?" I asked. "Faced with the reality, Marcho looked for and found a way to make it work with a lesser sacrifice. A handful of individuals instead of a genocide. Then, the Tringams found a way to cut out the sacrifices altogether. Maybe without homonculi running around, covering up knowledge of the Stone, that would've been discovered centuries ago."

"And what great good do you see coming from the Uranium bomb?" asked Noah.

"Uranium contains a massive amount of energy," I said. "Harnessed for peaceful purposes, it could provide heat, light, clean water, and anything else requiring energy."

"So we just walk away and leave them to sort it out for themselves?" asked Edward.

"No," I said. "The trouble is, even if we accept that most people would make the right choices, we know the Nazis are the sort who'd commit a genocide for the Stone happily. We have to make sure they aren't running things after we leave. Them getting the Bomb or the Stone first puts us right back to where Dante was running Amestris."

"We help the allies get the weapon first!" exclaimed Sloth.

. . .

I was sitting in the barn we'd converted for working with red water. The barrels of toxic chemicals now served no purpose but to offer me a bit of privacy and solitude while the others talked over whether to go along with my proposal. To clear my head, I had a notebook open and was designing transmutation circles.

I took a red stone, placed it at the farthest corner of the barn and marked off the distance to the other corner. I approached the stone, inch by inch, and tried activating an array. I was jotting down the results of my experiment when Sloth came in.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Figuring out how to stop Shao," I replied.

"By using up our supply of red stones?" she asked skeptically.

"Exactly," I said with a smirk. "Shao may be willing to do what it takes to produce red stones in this world, but it's still alchemy. If he doesn't have any red stones to use, he can't perform the transmutations to make more."

"So what's your plan?" she asked, now more sincerely.

"Some kind of transmutation circle can be set up and left running independently. We design an array that doesn't do much of anything on its own and get it close enough to Shao, it'll gradually use up all the stones on him. We won't have to capture or search him for it to work. More arrays scattered throughout his facility will use up all the energy there."

"We'd have to go in without any alchemy of our own to use it," Sloth mused.

"But that doesn't mean we'd have to go in defenseless," I added, tossing her a wristband with a transmutation circle on it.

"You know I can't use alchemy anyway," she reminded me as she put it on her left wrist.

"Just hold up your arm," I said and drew the sword hilt Edward had given me. Activating the array engraved on it, a beam of blue alchemic light extended from one side, I swung it down toward Sloth and she raised her arm instinctively.

When my blade got close, the array on Sloth's armband activated, drawing energy from the same red stone fueling the blade. My blue blade impacted a red glowing disk of solidified air like I had used in Central to block the alchemy from the airship.

"A shield," Sloth said with a smile forming on her lips.

"One that will work as long as there's a sword like this clashing against it," I added, lightly swinging at her a couple more times until both the sword and shield flickered out simultaneously.

"And it uses up the sword's power twice as fast," noted Sloth.

"Last time, we went in blind and unprepared," I said with determination. "We won't beat him on raw power. We beat him by being smarter and doing the prep work."

Suddenly remembering why she'd come in, Sloth said, "The others have made a decision."

"Let's go talk, then," I said, took her hand in mine, and returned to the farmhouse with her.

. . .

"Looks like we're playing kingmaker," said Edward dejectedly when Sloth and I entered the room.

"The scientists we captured are already being smuggled to England by the resistance," said Noah.

"Dad helped advise one of their officials during the last World War," said Edward. "I can try to get in contact with him and get us access to their program."

"You can get information out of any Nazi scientists they've captured, right Noah?" I asked.

She glanced at Edward and nodded.

"I'm not up to date on the literature," I admitted. "I presume there's something us alchemists can do that won't leave them dependent on our powers when we leave."

"Refining materials, constructing prototypes, getting data on short term, controlled reactions they can apply to larger scale models, and I'm sure a lot of other things once we arrive," said Alphonse.

"So, what convinced everyone?" I asked out of curiosity.

"If it turns out they're the wrong hands," explained Winry, "we'll be in the perfect place to stop them."

. . .

While Winry and the Elrics made preparations for the trip to England, I took Sloth and Noah aside.

"Shao may not be able or willing to make a Philosopher Stone without us, but he's still going to kill a lot of people making his red stones. And if anyone involves him in the nuclear program, it's going to be bad," I said.

"That's why we're going to give the allies the bomb and deal with him that way," said Noah. "You already tried a direct attack."

"You're right," I agreed. "A direct attack failed. That's why I'm thinking something more subtle this time."

"What do you mean, Greed?" asked Sloth.

"We can pass as human," I explained. "We know the Nazis are taking their prisoners and processing them into Stone material. If I could slip in undetected with the ingredients, I could burn out their red water without them realizing what happened."

"What if they figure out who you are?" asked Sloth. "My father will use you to make a Stone."

"He needs to touch my oroboros for that," I said. "Before I go in, I'll burn that patch of skin. Until I regenerate it, he can't enslave me."

"Plus, that's the identifying mark his people will be looking out for," said Noah, comprehension dawning.

"I'll be less use on the bomb project than you, Ed, or Al," I acknowledged. "But my endurance will let me survive infiltrating the camps long enough to disrupt Shao's plans."

"I've got that same endurance," volunteered Sloth.

I smiled and said, "I need someone on the outside. If this works, I'll have destroyed all the alchemy material in the camp, so I won't be able to break out on my own. I need someone smart, stealthy, and slippery to get in and get me out when the job's done."

Sloth nodded. "In the meantime, I can check out his house and make sure he doesn't have any red stones hidden away there."

"Just don't get caught," I said with concern.

"We'll burn off my oroboros before we split up too," she said matter of factly.

"What did you need me for?" asked Noah.

"To get in with the ingredients, I need to fake being in one of the groups they're rounding up. I need your help figuring out how to do that."

Noah paused and stared for a moment before saying, "You are in one of those groups. If you want to get caught, all you have to do..."

. . .

Author's comments:  
The scientist in the opening of Conqueror of Shamballa always annoyed me. Alchemy is a proven science in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, and the way he talked made it very clear he didn't understand what science was. On the plus side, explaining how science works to him has reminded Greed that experimentation and science are things he cares about, and thus opened up new options for solving the problems our heroes face.


	37. Romantic Interlude 8

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 37) Romantic Interlude 8  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 38.  
***WARNING***

. . .

"Are you sure, Greed?" asked Sloth one last time.

"Whatever happens, I'll see you on the other side of this. I love you." I pressed my lips to hers and pulled Sloth into an embrace.

The two of us were in a German church before it opened for the day. We'd selected a pew away from the doors and were dressed in the common style of the area.

Sloth slipped her tongue between my parted lips and placed her hands at the back of my head. This would be our last chance to be together for a while, and neither one of us wanted to waste it.

As we kissed, I put a hand on Sloth's thigh and ran it up her leg under her skirt. The girl wriggled a little as I started groping her butt. Sloth flinched a bit as my other hand ran up her back and passed over the fresh burn where her oroboros mark belonged.

I pulled my hand away from the burn and moved to break our kiss to apologize, but Sloth held my mouth to hers. I got the message and started using that hand to start unbuttoning her shirt instead.

Without breaking the seal of our lips, Sloth let go of my head and used her hands to support herself as she repositioned and straddled my lap. I helped support with the hand I ha on her butt, then firmly slid that hand between her spread legs.

Sloth's shirt now unbuttoned, I rubbed her bare, flat chest as she finally broke our kiss and started undoing my shirt. I worked to slow her down by distracting her by rubbing her crotch through her panties. I smiled every time she had to pause and gasp as the pleasurable sensations ran through her body.

"I'll be glad when we're out of this world and can undress faster," she said after the third time her tiny fingers slipped off a button.

"No argument from me," I said with a smirk and pressed a finger into her wet crotch.

When she finally got my shirt undone, she threw her head into my chest and latched her lips onto one of my nipples even as she writhed under my touch. Her desperate suction felt good, and I had to stop playing with her body and go with it.

Sloth's hands weren't idle as she sucked on my nipple to occupy her searching mouth. I felt tiny hands fumbling with the fly of my pants. I groaned in anticipation louder than I'd anticipated and froze. Yes, the whole point was to get caught in a compromising position with a four year old girl, but I was getting so into it that I'd really rather my position get a lot more compromising than this before they found us.

The momentary shock took me out of the moment, and I felt Sloth hesitate in response.

"Don't stop," I groaned in a low, desperate voice and started pulling at her panties with both hands, succeeding at getting them down just past her butt, but unable to get them all the way off with the way her legs were splayed.

Sloth took instruction gladly and began kissing her way down my chest as she undid my fly. I flipped up her skirt to get a good look at her bare ass as she bent over. When I felt her tiny hands grip the shaft of my erection, I inserted a finger into her hot, tight vagina. She jumped slightly with surprise, then shoved the head of my penis into her eager mouth.

I probed the inside of her vagina with my finger while she sucked as hard as she could and gripped my penis tight. I switched hands so I could lick her vaginal juices off my probing finger.

It was at that moment, the head of my penis filling the mouth of an eager, half-dressed, four year old girl as I leaned back to taste the results of my masturbating her, that the church doors opened. It was time to get caught, so no point holding anything back.

I called out with pleasure and released any remaining tension in my body. Semen began to spurt into Sloth's already overfull mouth. The action of her throat and tongue to swallow every drop she could before we were separated urged me on. Strong hands gripped us both and pulled us apart. Sloth's hands kept their grip on my penis longer than her lips could, and the final surge of my ejaculation spattered her beautiful face with the sticky fluid.

That was the last I saw of her before being dragged to the ground and beaten by an angry mob. A fist collided with the back of my skull, and a kick was planted in my stomach. I had to resist the impulse to fight back, and instead just tried to awkwardly cover my vital areas. I'd become quite familiar with pain over the years, between automail and slithering around that sandstone floor as a misshapen pile of exposed organs. As a result, the pain their blows inflicted was a minor nuisance by comparison. I hadn't accounted for how it must look from the outside.

"Don't hurt him!" Sloth screamed. I heard a man deflate as the wind was knocked out of him, and the commotion of part of the mob trying to restrain my lover.

"Go!" I called out. "Get out of here!"

"I'll come back for you!" called back Sloth in a husky voice, as though through tears. Then more surprised sounds from the crowd as Sloth, nearly effortlessly, escaped their grasping hands and ran from the scene.

The beating continued uninterrupted during that scene, and it finally occurred to me that as long as I was moving, the crowd had no intention of stopping, so I went limp and feigned unconsciousness.

. . .

Author's comments:  
While the Jews are the most famous victims of the Holocaust, so-called "sexual deviants" had their own concentration camp designations.


	38. The Camps

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 38) The Camps  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

At the police station, I gave a fake name in case Shao had the foresight to have them looking for me specifically. The paperwork took longer than I'd expected, and I was beginning to worry they were stalling when they sent me out with a number of other prisoners, under guard, to a waiting truck. They packed us in tight, and as a courtesy to my fellow prisoners, I refrained from breathing.

The whole trip, and the even more cramped train ride after, I spent thinking about Sloth. Had I made a mistake asking her to help me with this? Would I have let her go if our situations were reversed? It distracted me from the filthy, inhuman conditions of the cattle car we rode in.

The camp I arrived in wasn't the one Shao was operating, but I wasn't too worried. With how many people were being processed, it made sense that they'd need holding facilities until space in the camp with their one alchemist opened up. On arrival, a Nazi official called out names, and I was directed with the other prisoners to an area where we were stripped, shaved, and had striped uniforms shoved at us.

Appalling as the dehumanizing treatment was, homogenizing us and putting us all in ill-fitting uniforms worked to my advantage, in that it would make it harder for Shao to recognize me among the ingredients. I was given a number to replace my already false name, and a pink, triangular patch of cloth. They instructed me to sew both to my uniform.

Our train had arrived after the evening meal, so we were sent to an overcrowded barracks. There were some sixty beds, all double occupied with dozens more prisoners laid out on thin blankets on the floor. The new arrivals mulled about, asking questions of those already here and swapping uniforms among themselves to try to get ones that fit before settling in to sew on their identifiers. Not needing rest, I found an unoccupied place to lean against a wall for the night. I wasn't much of a sewer, but with patients and effort, I managed to get the numbers and patch on my uniform. I felt a little dignity restored once I got the clothing on. That wouldn't last long.

When morning came, one of the guards called my number. Unfamiliar with the designation, it took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. When I realized and responded, he struck me in the face with the butt of his rifle. I felt my hands reaching out for the weapon as I fell to the ground, but managed to avoid making a fight of it by conscious will. The guard had seen me start to reach for the gun, quickly reversed it and pointed its barrel at me where I lay on the ground.

Other guards were tracking the prisoners with their weapons and ensuring they wouldn't interfere. I let the guard kick me hard in the ribs and feigned submission as best I could. If I got shot and kept moving, my cover would be blown. After a few more kicks, the guard demanded I get up. I moved to comply and he kicked my legs out from under me, then ordered me to get up again. He did this twice more before laughing and shoving me towards a medical building.

Inside, they double-checked my identity, then ordered me to lay down on a gurney. I complied and was strapped down. My clothing was moved aside, and the doctors took scalpels and heated irons to my genitals and castrated me without anesthetic. I was no stranger to pain. I'd felt worse, which was why I was able to resist the reflex to snap the leather straps holding me down. The screams though, those were genuine. When they were done, I was unceremoniously dumped outside.

I think the guards were surprised at how quickly I recovered enough to walk, because I got a suspicious look when the new arrivals were made to line up and get their work detail assignments. It seemed that while waiting to be processed into stone material, the Nazis were using us as slave labor. I learned I was to be sent outside the camp to work a coal mine. Even more surprisingly, we were to be force marched to it rather than transported by vehicle.

. . .

I was chained up with a group of unhealthy looking miners. I recognized the symptoms of a number of respiratory conditions on a few of them. On the road, I kept an eye on the weakest of my fellow prisoners and took advantage of my superior stamina to help support them when they faltered. I think I saved a couple from the wrath of the guards, but for how long remained to be seen.

The mine itself was an ugly pit, surrounded by barbed wire with a couple guard shacks. There was no safety equipment when we were sent down. It was as though they didn't care if we died before getting to Shao's camp.

Any alchemist worth a damn has studied geology and mineralogy, so I was familiar with how to identify a vein of coal and recognize an unstable tunnel. It wasn't long before I found myself directing the other prisoners any time we were out of earshot of our actual supervisors. While mining, I got a better picture of how this genocide was being carried out. Some of my fellows knew or suspected we would all be killed in the end. Others just expected the survivors to be relocated at the war's end.

I also learned the meaning behind the insignia we were forced to wear. I had a pink triangle, designating me a sexual deviant. Those wearing hexagrams were Jews, a religious or ethnic minority that was apparently hated in Germany. Most of the group I'd arrived with wore green triangles, indicating criminals of one sort or another. Whatever distaste these groups may have had for each other on the outside, for the moment, we had common cause.

When I mentioned that no one in my group had been fed yet since we arrived, I learned that prisoners were given rations, but never enough. They were starving us as well as working us to death. And all before being sent on. It wasn't just cruel. It was senselessly wasteful. Come meal time, I managed to covertly empty my bowl of thin soul into another prisoner's bowl and drop the piece of bread on a different one's plate. I didn't need to eat and they did. Not to mention this entire experience left me without any apatite.

I stayed at the forced labor camp for three weeks. In that time, I saw dozens of men drop dead from exhaustion and starvation, and three more killed by the guards. I stepped in and absorbed beatings on behalf of my fellows as often as I could manage, and had to constantly resist the temptation to attack the guards and try to get the others out. Stopping the genocide by getting to Shao was my priority. I had to remember that. To that end, I hid transmutation circles in the clothing of the other prisoners while they slept, in case they got to Shao's camp before I did. Hopefully, it would burn out the red stones before they could be processed and save their lives.

Ultimately, I was shipped out of the forced labor camp along with another group of mostly Jewish prisoners. I was the strongest and healthiest one in the shipment, most of the others being too sick to work. Even so, I couldn't figure out the rhyme nor reason behind who was sent off and who was kept.

. . .

Our destination still wasn't Shao's camp. The first thing after debarking the train, we were herded into a building where the prison numbers on our clothing were tattooed onto our forearms. We were being branded like cattle. This camp was different from the others in a number of ways. Most extraordinarily, there were children here. I saw some of them being marked the same way while I was being processed.

The other main difference became apparent a few hours after processing. I, along with a number of other prisoners strong enough to work, were set to task digging a large pit. The Nazis filled it with bodies. Hundreds of corpses all seemingly killed by the same poison gas. And more kept coming. These people weren't being worked to death or held in waiting to be processed into stone material. They were just being killed, systematically and pointlessly.

That was when I realized the truth. This genocide wasn't being perpetrated in pursuit of the Stone. Shao was taking advantage of a genocide already in progress to provide material for his experiments. Eliminating Shao's ability to seek the Stone wouldn't stop the genocide.

With that realization and the certainty I wouldn't reach Shao's camp, any thought of patients and subtlety fled my mind. The mission was a failure, and now all I could do was try to break out and free whoever I could before they were killed.

I gripped the shovel they'd given me in both hands and swung it as hard as I could at the nearest guard. The blade hit his neck edgewise and he was decapitated before he realized what happened. I reversed my grip on the shovel and hurled it like a spear at a more distant Nazi, impaling him through the chest as I dipped down to snatch up the rifle from the body of the first guard I killed.

Shots rang out and bullets from three more guards stung my left leg and my torso. I returned fire on them before being rushed by closer guards. My bullets missed, but I managed to cave in the skull of the nearest Nazi to get in arm's reach with the butt of the gun.

I sprinted at the central guard tower, housing a mounted machine-gun, and kicked the thick wooden support, splintering it with raw physical strength. As the tower swayed, the Nazis inside could do little more than hang on for dear life. A general riot was rising up, and without the guard tower to rain death from above, some of the prisoners grabbed up the weapons from the fallen guards.

A dozen more bullets tore through my heart and lungs as the Nazi guards were screaming for more men. Along with a group of prisoners, I rushed at the soldiers guarding the main gate. The heavy guns they were using had more effect on me, managing to tear through the flesh and bone of my left shoulder and leave that arm dangling limp at my side before I was on their position. I leapt into the nest, over a four foot, barbed wire topped, sandbag wall and landed with a kick to the face of the main gunner, who's neck snapped from the impact.

Those prisoners who hadn't been able to grab weapons grabbed children instead and made a break for the now unguarded gate. The guards' reinforcements had arrived and were drawing beads on the fleeing prisoners. Shots rang out, and a dozen fleeing prisoners dropped dead. I needed to cover their escape.

Lifting the heavy machine-gun off its mounts with my good arm, I sent a long burst of gunfire at the Nazis until the belt of ammunition ran out. Dozens of Nazi guards were torn to bits by the heavy weapon. That focused the surviving guards on me, giving the fleeing group of prisoners time to escape. It wasn't even a quarter of the prisoners here, but it was something.

A grenade rolled to my feet and blew off my injured left leg. I kept my balance leaning against the sandbag wall and pulled a pistol from the belt of a dead Nazi nearby to keep fighting with. The Nazis rushed me, and I only got off one wild shot with the pistol when three men tackled me to the ground. One wrested the gun from my hand, and I couldn't get an angle to kick any of the others with my remaining leg. They had me.

. . .

"You put up quite a fight," said the Nazi doctor amiably. I'd been chained to a surgical table shortly after the guards managed to overpower me. "Tell me, are you feeling any pain from any of your injuries?"

"I've felt worse," I managed to choke out despite the damage to my lungs.

"Indeed," replied the doctor. "Well, we're going to be performing some exploratory surgery to see just how severe those injuries really were. I can already say it's amazing how little blood loss you've suffered."

"I'm tougher than I look," I shot back.

The doctor laughed. "As those men you murdered found out firsthand."

"I saved more lives than I took, even if it wasn't enough to shut you down."

"You mean the Jews you helped escape? They'll be hunted down and retrieved soon enough. The truth is, you've accomplished nothing."

"They're armed and your people wasted a lot of time catching me. I think they've got a good enough head start."

"Your records don't indicate a history of violence, or we'd have assigned people to watch you more closely. Personally, however, I'm grateful we got to see that demonstration of yours. There's a lot to be learned from your body."

That sent a shiver down my spine. If he got an inkling of what I was or how to access the red stone energy in my body, our troubles would multiply. Clear thinking to devise an escape plan was put off when his scalpel started cutting into my chest.

The worst pain I'd ever experienced was just after attaching my soul to this body, when I existed as a pile of malformed bones, unprotected organs, and exposed nerves for God knows how long. In second place was having automail installed, physically connecting every nerve to the mechanical replacement parts. The process of having my sternum sawed through and my ribcage spread open was a very close third.

"Astounding. Did you know your heart has a bullet hole through the left ventricle?" came the voice of the Nazi doctor through the haze of pain. "Even there, the internal bleeding is remarkably minor. The heart hasn't stopped, and even the nearby tissue doesn't seem to be suffering from oxygen deprivation. I'd like to get another subject in here for comparison."

They cut open another prisoner right next to me. His screams of agony drowned out whatever the doctor was saying to himself. I got the impression they were trying to duplicate my injuries on his body. Mercifully, he was dead fairly quickly as a result. They tried twice more before accepting that my wounds should have killed me.

Over the next week, I was subjected to dozens of experiments. Blood was transfused between me and other prisoners. They died, I didn't. Chemicals were injected into my eyes for reasons I couldn't comprehend. Organs were swapped between me and other prisoners. Again, they died. Their organs died and rotted in my body, but I lived. They dunked me in hot and cold water baths trying and failing to induce shock or hypothermia. They compared the way my skin blistered to the response of other prisoners.

At a certain point, I managed to get a look at the notes they were taking. Given the nature of the experiments, their notes were wholly inadequate. No attempts were made to note or control for obvious variables. Subjective descriptions were substituting for quantitative measures. Yes, they were torturing me, and torturing others to death alongside me, but I had been assuming they were collecting useable data. I recalled more details from memory as the test subject than they had in their notes. Being experimented on was one thing. Being experimented on by incompetents just added insult to injury.

A homonculus isn't indestructible. Without my regeneration, the injuries they inflicted added up. At length, they cut open my skull for exploratory brain surgery and I knew no more.

. . .

Author's comments:  
If a work of fiction can do justice to the atrocities of the second world war, it certainly isn't this one. I hope only to underline the pointlessness of it all.


	39. The End of the Sewing Life Alchemist

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 39) The End of the Sewing Life Alchemist  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

The next thing I knew, there was a surge of alchemic energy. My skeleton reconstituted itself in a storm of blue sparks. Foreign objects were forced out of my chest cavity as a wave of alchemic light reconstituted my organs and muscle tissues. My skin, hair, and nails returned with the last wave and I found myself lying on the ground at the side of the road.

Sloth was standing over me, her face wet with tears. Around me, were piles of burnt out red stones. It looked like she'd needed to use every stone we hadn't sent on with Ed and Al to power my regeneration after what the Nazis did to me. From what I saw, it almost hadn't been enough.

"Sloth?" I said, physically fine, but more than a little disoriented. "Where are we?"

At my words, Sloth wrapped her arms around my neck, tears streaming onto my shoulder. "Greed, you're okay! I'm so sorry it took me so long to find you!"

"I'm okay," I said hugging her back, a bit too tightly for that to be true. I'd have to really have been inhuman for the things I'd seen and what I'd been through not to effect me, but the last thing I needed was Sloth blaming herself more than she already was.

"I watched the camp my father was running for two months before I figured out something was wrong. I spent weeks trying to find out where you were. When I found out they killed you..." Sloth choked on a fresh sob.

I let some tears of my own flow in an effort to steady my voice. "I'm so sorry I put you through that. Don't blame yourself for what happened to me in there. You're the one who saved me. If you hadn't found my body, I'd still be dead."

We held each other for a long while, crying out our pains and our fears. Eventually, we both calmed down, and I looked around at our surroundings. I'd apparently been in transit by truck. A pair of beaten, bound, and gagged Nazis were tied to a tree and their truck had collided with a second tree. My bones had been in a case that was broken open and now held only the burnt out red stones.

"Where are we?" I repeated, breaking the embrace to talk face-to-face and wiping away the tears on my cheeks as I went.

"We're a couple miles outside Berlin," said Sloth wiping her own face now that she'd also had the chance to regain her composure. "Your skeleton, or most of it, was being transported to a research facility in the city proper."

"I don't think they figured out what I was," I declared. "Their experiments weren't really geared towards getting that kind of information. I did find out one thing. Stopping Shao won't stop the genocide. They're killing people for the sake of killing them, not in pursuit of the Stone."

Sloth considered that for a moment, then said, "Even if it won't stop the deaths, we need to deal with my father." She produced the two fingers we'd brought with us just in case. The rest of the arm had been sent on with the others along with most of the red stones.

I nodded my assent. "My plan just failed pretty spectacularly. I presume you have an idea."

"I've thought a lot about this," she said, fixing a firm expression on her features. "I want you to experiment on me."

"What?" I asked in shock. Having just been on the receiving end of human experimentation, I was reacting more on emotion than reason. "What good could that possibly do?"

She didn't flinch. She'd been expecting a response like that and pressed on. "What my father did to me was an awful violation. He subverted my free will and warped my identity. Even at this point, I don't know how much of what I feel about him is genuine and how much is implanted memories and emotions. Trying to work around my sensibilities that might not even be real got Izumi killed and maybe drove Wrath to his death as a result of that."

"I'm not going to cut out your feelings for him. Real or not, they're a part of who you are now. Asking me to do that is as good as asking me to kill you."

"What about killing him?" she asked with a sad smile. "I'm too twisted up inside to want him dead, but I know he has to be stopped. If you know how he tampered with my mind, you could use it on him, and make him no longer a threat."

"And it's a tactic he'd never expect from us," I mused, warming slightly to the idea. "But what if I make a mistake working on you? I might not be able to fix it."

"You're careful, Greed. You care about your subjects and you always have. I trust you. With my life. With my heart. And if I had one, with my soul."

"Do you have a place for us to work?" I asked, somewhat humbled by her faith in me, especially right on the heels of my most recent failure. I was determined to prove it had not been misplaced.

. . .

Sloth had occupied a condemned building in Berlin, near where Shao was living, but not so close as to force a confrontation immediately. There were no furnishings, and the floor was covered in stolen Nazi papers, which she'd been using in an attempt to find me.

"We'll need to raid his house for red stones to work with," said Sloth unhappily.

"No," I replied. "That'll clue him in that we're here and expose us to risk of capture before we're ready."

"We're out of red stones," Sloth said, seemingly confused I hadn't already grasped that.

"No, we aren't," I said, taking a pen and tracing a transmutation circle on my forearm. I touched it, and blue light poured off it. The scar on Sloth's back healed, restoring her burned off oroboros mark.

"Thule's array!" Sloth said in recognition.

"Hohenheim showed them how to fuel alchemy using the red stones in a homonculus' body," I confirmed.

"That's still a limited power source," Sloth pointed out. "You'll be draining away your own life and power."

"We can replace it when we get home. For now, it'll do for our experiments."

I understood the basic principle of using alchemy to tamper with a homonculus' mind. Sloth had shown me some of Shao's early arrays, Alphonse had described his own theories from a time he wondered if his own memories were false, and I'd seen much opening the Gate again and again. Even so, I moved carefully taking the next step into practice.

A very simple memory was where I started, changing the simple shape Sloth remembered seeing in a notebook. I drew a square, showed it to her, then stood behind her, clapped my hands, activated the array on my arm to power the transmutation, and pressed my palm against the oroboros mark on Sloth's back. Her mark glowed blue for a moment, and she remembered seeing a circle.

The experiments progressed from there. At each step, I removed any false memories I'd created and restored any genuine ones I suppressed. At each stage, I went over what I was going to try and confirmed she was okay with it.

When I'd gained complete control over Sloth's personal memories, I progressed to skills. Then to basic motor control. Then to basic sensory processing. Along the way, I got a vague idea of the interplay between memory, skill, and personality. Enough to confirm our plan could be enacted safely.

After three days of experimentation, I was confident in my abilities and in awe of the level of trust Sloth had shown throughout. At the end, I did find out there'd been an ulterior motive to Sloth's plan.

"You can use alchemy on yourself, right?" asked Sloth when I'd finished my experiments on her. "I know you can transmute your own body. Can you effect your mind and memories too?"

In response to her reasonable question, I flipped open the notebook to the page where I'd draw the square, clapped my hands, and folded them over the oroboros mark on my chest. The mark glowed briefly, and I looked at the page and confirmed, "Looks like I can."

Sloth sighed with relief. "Good. You don't need to carry around what happened in that camp for the rest of your life."

"I'm not going to erase my memory," I said, surprised the thought had even occurred to her. "It was bad, but it's also over. And it'll help me remember why it's so important to stop them."

"I just thought..." she trailed off.

"The bravest thing I've ever seen was when Nina told me she needed to remember what happened to her," I said, putting a finger under Sloth's chin to bring her eyes up to meet mine. "We've both got things that are hard to remember, but if we don't hold on to those memories, even the bad ones, who are we?"

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'll be okay. Now, do you want to see something neat?"

Smiling at my question, Sloth nodded. I picked up a severed braid of blonde hair I'd set aside during my experiments.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Your hair," I told her. "Your memory was being tampered with at the time, and you've mentioned before that those transition points are the hardest to put into context."

Sloth pulled her two braids forward where she could inspect them. "What happened?"

"I found out that if I change your memory of what you look like, you regenerate into what you remember being. I think that must be what happened to Gluttony. He forgot his human form, and changed as a result. Changing your hair color was just a simple test."

"You can change what I look like?" asked Sloth processing the implications. "I don't have to be stuck in the body of a four year old forever?"

I smiled faintly. I'd anticipated this response. "That's right. You can look like whoever and whatever you want. I just have to change what you remember being."

"We could walk around in public together without getting dirty looks... or arrest attempts."

"Arrest attempts I'll give you. The dirty looks, though were totally worth it." I took Sloth by the hand and led her to a mirror. "However you decide to change in the future, and for whatever reason, I want you to always remember, this is the face I fell in love with."

"Thanks, Greed," she said, embracing the hand I led her to the mirror with. "I love you too."

"I want you to know, I'll always love you, no matter how you change your appearance. But since right now, you're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met, almost any change I can imagine would leave you less attractive than you are right now."

"You'll have to suffer through it," said Sloth with a wry smile. "Just like I'll need to deal with you looking like someone who doesn't look out of place walking the streets in Germany until this is all over."

I nodded, clapped my hands, and folded them over the oroboros on my chest. Blue light poured from my body. In an instant, my skin had become pale, my eyes blue, and my spiked up hair was now blonde.

"How do I look?" I asked Sloth.

"Not bad," she said in a critical tone. "Good for variety at least. Now it's my turn. Make a woman out of me."

I smiled at her phrasing, clapped my hands, and hugged her tiny body one last time. Blue sparks flew off her body as she rapidly grew. I held her tight through the transformation. When it was complete, I let go and we turned toward the mirror.

Sloth's hair was now blonde, though it was still styled the same as always, with her twin braids going most of the way down her back. She was the same height as me, and still had the same blue eyes she'd inherited from Nina. The black outfit she wore had grown with her, still an overall dress with the skirt down to mid-thigh and nothing underneath. It showed off her new curves admirably.

Looking in the mirror, Sloth took one of her braids and started fondling it as she stared at her new body. I'd changed her self-image in her memory, so this was what she expected to look like, but there was a nervous, uncomfortable quality to her body language.

"This feels weird," she said at length. "I look right, but when I got to move, something seems off."

"That's probably because you've never had limbs this long before. It might take some getting used to." I placed my hands on her shoulders comfortingly. "Try walking around a little and getting used to the new body."

It didn't take long before her discomfort passed, and she spun on her tip toes in front of the mirror, taking in her new appearance with an appraising eye. Staring intently into the mirror, at length, she said, "You didn't give me very big breasts."

"We can make changes if you're not happy," I said. "It's your body. I do know, past a certain size, it's harder to walk and run."

Frowning at her reflection, she asked, "Do you like how I look?"

"I liked your original appearance better," I said, "but if you had to grow up, this is as beautiful as I can imagine."

I affirmed that statement by kissing her deeply. It felt strange. The major changes her body had gone through left me feeling, irrationally, like I was cheating on her.

Still getting used to her own body, Sloth was still sensitive to my cues and broke the kiss herself. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," I said. "It's just... I know it's still you, but with the new body, it feels strange. Like I'm kissing someone else behind your back. I'll get over it. It'll just take some getting used to."

"I don't suppose practice will help you get over it quicker?" she asked with a wry grin that was unmistakably Sloth's. Our lips locked, and I managed to relax enough to enjoy the novelty, even if I did still miss my lover's original form.

. . .

Our new appearances allowing us to walk the streets of Berlin unmolested, it was time to face Shao and put an end to this. The front door was guarded by a pair of humanoid chimeras. Sloth and I circled to the side of the building, and using some alchemic energy from the red stones in my body, Sloth walked us both through the wall. Staying close together, we began searching the house.

"Who are you?" asked a frightened woman who bore a strong resemblance to Sloth.

I flashed an ID I'd prepared i case we got stopped. "We're from the High Command. We've received word that an attack is going to be made here. We were sent to give orders to evacuate. Your husband is already on his way out of the city."

The badge wouldn't have stood up to a careful inspection, but I'd been in the military back home long enough to adopt the right tone, and the people here were conditioned to obey reflexively. She quickly gathered a few clothes and keepsakes and left us alone in the house to prepare for Shao.

When we were alone, Sloth said, "Nina was two years old when she lost her mother. There were pictures around the house, and my father told me she'd just left them. Do you think she knows what he's doing?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Hopefully we can finish what we came here for before she realizes what happened."

We settled in to wait. Three hours later, after the sun had set, Shao's car pulled up to the house. His driver, another chimera, got out with him and followed him inside, past the pair that were guarding the front door.

"I'm home, dear," Shao called out as the mute chimera took his coat. He stepped into the kitchen and stumbled, clutching his chest. The severed finger from his chimera body was situated on a platter. He immediately called for assistance from the three chimera guards.

As soon as the two guards outside stepped in, I clapped my hands and transmuted away the door, leaving only a blank wall. That gave away our position, and the three chimeras drew their sword hilts, which each ignited a red, glowing blade. I drew a hilt of my own, a variant of the design Edward had given me that used the Grand Arcanum in its engraved array. The array on my sword remained dark, since I hadn't activated the array drawn on my arm that let me fuel my alchemy with the red stones in my body.

Sloth and I charged the chimeras. The red stones in our bodies we'd used powering our experiments left us weaker than we'd been before, but we were still stronger and faster than these chimeras. Sloth kicked one in the face as our charges met, hurling it backward and knocking his weapon away. I brought my hilt up as though there were a blade to block a downward swing of the glowing red blade of energy from a second chimera. The instant the blades looked about to clash, the array on my sword was able to draw on the energy radiating from his red stone, and a brilliant blue shaft of light sprang from my hilt, blocking his blow.

The third chimera slashed at Sloth, who raised her left hand to block. The array on her wristband blazed to light, drawing power from her opponent's red stone. His blade clashed against a glowing disk of red alchemic light.

I took advantage of the element of surprise to sidestep the downward blow I'd blocked, and slash low across my opponent's midsection before he could get his weapon up to defend. As the chimera was cut in half at the waist, a number of glowing blue particles converged on the hollow part of my sword hilt, where the red stone was supposed to go. Compressing together at the center of the modified Grand Arcanum array, a pinpoint of red light coalesced in the center and grew to the size of a small pebble. A new red stone, born from the life I'd taken.

There was little time to process that act, as a burst of blue alchemic light enveloped a tiny wall spider above my head, causing it to grow to the size of a large dog and drop on my head, pulling me to the ground. The Sewing Life Alchemist had entered the fight. Sloth punched the sword-wielding chimera she was engaged with in the face and turned to charge at her father. Neither of the chimeras Sloth had struck were moving.

Shao ignited a blue energy blade of his own as Sloth charged in at him, and used it to parry Sloth's fist, bisecting her hand and arm down to her elbow. Sloth screamed out in pain and flinched backward. Her regeneration kicked in quickly, fueled by the red stones Shao carried, causing her arm to fuse back together. It shouldn't have slowed her down, but Sloth was less used to physical pain, never having had the experience of assembling a misshapen body into a human form.

As for me, the spider chimera was a very effective distraction. I severed a few legs with my alchemic blade, but that didn't even register on its simple nervous system, and it sank venom dripping fangs the size of daggers into my body. There was considerable pain as my organs began to liquify from the venom, but I was eventually able to get my feet braced under its abdomen and throw it off me. It sprang right back at me, but I was ready and decapitated it as I sidestepped its bulk.

The pressure off him, Shao turned and used his glowing blue alchemic blade to deconstruct the finger from his remains that was weakening him. This did mean turning has back on Sloth. She recovered faster than he was ready for, and he'd destroyed the remains just in time to find his heart had been torn out through his back without breaking the skin.

Shao was a homonculus, the same as Sloth and I. While painful, the wound wasn't fatal or even incapacitating. Shao used the red stones he was carrying to alchemically carve a Flamel array under Sloth's feet. It glowed blue and Sloth began vomiting up her red stones.

I rushed at Shao, who was too focused on Sloth to react in time to parry my alchemic blade. The blue shaft of energy passed through Shao's neck. He'd once consumed a philosopher's stone, and his rate of regeneration was still unreal as a result. The wound had healed before I'd even finished inflicting it.

Shao didn't miss a step. He saw a chance to end the fight and took it. With the two of us standing close, face-to-face, in the wake of my pointless attack, Shao slammed his palm into the center of my chest, where he knew my oroboros mark was located. I dropped my weapon, who's glowing blade flickered out of existence.

Then I smiled. Sloth and I had both burned off our oroboros marks before coming, to prevent that tactic of Shao's from working. He didn't know why. All he knew was that I had somehow resisted. I didn't give him a chance to think on it further.

I clapped my hands and flipped Shao's hat off his head, revealing his own oroboros mark in the center of his forehead. I gripped his head with my right arm and blue light poured from between my fingers. As the light from my alchemy glowed brightly, the light from Shao's alchemy died, the flamel array releasing Sloth and his alchemy fueled sword going dark.

I released my opponent, who stumbled backward in confusion while Sloth got back to her feet. We both knew it was over.

"What did you do to me?" demanded Shao in a mix of shock and fear.

"I took away your knowledge of alchemy. Your personal memories are untouched. You should still remember what you've done and why. I'll never be the one to let you forget that. But the how, I've taken from you. The meaning of alchemic symbols, how to activate a transmutation circle, everything you saw in the Gate. Everything that made you a threat."

"You have a choice now," said Sloth. "We're not going to kill you. Without alchemy, you're no use to the Nazis. I don't want you to be a part of my life anymore, but I hope you can grow as a person and stop living at the expense of others."

"But if you can't," I added, taking another severed finger from Shao's corpse out of my pocket and setting it on a table, "it only seems fair to leave you with the means to end it. Either way, you don't get to keep the strength and vitality the stones have given you. Step into the array."

Shao hung his head as he shuffled into the center of the array he'd tried to seal Sloth in. I retrieved the alchemic weapons from the fallen chimeras and activated the flamel array. Shao began the long process of vomiting up every red stone he'd consumed. Were it not for the unforgivable crimes he'd committed, I'd almost been able to find him pitiable. When it was done, I clapped my hands, restored the door using the energy from the red stones in the weapons, and the two of us walked away, leaving Shao to his decision.

. . .

"Is it really over?" asked Sloth. "There are still all the red stones he already made. He might figure out a way to use them."

"There's a transmutation circle on the back of his head, below the hair. I made him think it was the anchoring point for his soul attachment so he won't try to remove it. It'll burn out the power of any red stones he gets near."

"What about the other Nazis?"

"Shao doesn't document his research properly," I said, turning my head to face forward as we walked down the streets of Berlin. "Plus, he clearly kept information from the Nazis to make sure he'd stay useful."

"What now?" asked Sloth, taking my hand and leaning her head against my shoulder as we walked. "Meet up with Ed and Al?"

"We have one more thing to do first," I said. "The mark on Shao's body takes time to burn out a stone. With most of them, that won't matter much, but last time we were at his death camp, there was a practical underground river of incomplete stones. If he got exposed to that much stone material, it might jog his memory before it can all be neutralized."

"So we have to destroy it first," acknowledged Sloth.

"And liberate the camp while we're there," I said, nodding.

. . .

Sloth and I drove up to the front gate of the camp. When the gate guard asked to see our papers, I just took Sloth by the hand and we both stepped through the front of the car and into the camp. The guards recovered from their surprise quickly and tried to shoot us. Thanks to Sloth's powers, fueled by the red stones in my body using Thule's array, the Nazis' bullets passed through us harmlessly.

"Leave or die," I told the soldiers when they stopped shooting to try and figure out why their bullets were having no effect.

In response, one of them drew a pistol, walked up to me, pointed it at my face, less than an inch away, and pulled the trigger. When that bullet also did nothing, I snatched the pistol out of his hand, aiming it at him.

"I'm not going to tell you again," I declared. The soldiers scattered.

I remained hand in hand with Sloth as we directed all the prisoners in the main area of the camp out. Then we stepped through the secret door to the facility's lower level, where the chimera guards with weapons Sloth couldn't phase through guarded the products of the Nazi Philosopher Stone project.

"I'm down to human strength and speed," said Sloth as we walked down. "Without any red stones in me, I don't know how much use I'll be."

"Remember their swords have red stones in them," I reminded her. "If you can get in close without being cut, you should be able to use your powers off their stones."

"Just remember to put me back together after they cut me to pieces," remarked Sloth dryly.

Our conversation was cut short as six chimera guards stepped into view. Their weapons glowing red, I smiled grimly at the thought of a rematch as I took my own hilt in my right hand and extended a glowing blue blade of my own. I was outnumbered worse than last time. The diminished number of red stones in my body meant I was slower and weaker than last time. I was carrying less stones to power my alchemy. I was feeling pretty confident.

The chimeras rushed us as a group. Sloth raised one arm to block a downward swing and lowed the other to block a low threat from a second chimera. I ducked my head and held out my left arm to intercept an attack at my midsection as I deflected another blow with my blade. Three discs of red alchemic light sprang into existence on contacting the energy blades of the chimeras, each springing from a transmutation circle on a wristband worn by me or Sloth.

The last time, the chimeras had been able to wear down the Elric brothers by staying on the defensive and tiring them out. This time, I adopted the same strategy. Sloth and I stayed back to back, blocking them, but making no attempt to counterattack. They were faster and stronger than either Sloth or I were, as depleted as our bodies were, but they were still living beings, in need of food, drink, and sleep, while even diminished as we were, Sloth and I could keep going at our current level of exertion indefinitely.

We didn't have to wait that long. After five minutes of fighting, the first of their energy blades flickered and died. The chimera was in close to me when it happened, and I took my chance to turn my own sword and pierce his heart, re-energizing the red stone in my sword and permanently diminishing the number of attackers fighting us.

When the next chimera's weapon ran out of power, he tried to punch Sloth. Where his arm passed through Sloth's head, it severed cleanly. The chimera fell back, nursing a bloody stump. With how much blood he was losing, he wouldn't last long.

Recognizing they were on borrowed time, the remaining chimeras pocked up their pace, making fast, wild, desperate attacks on both Sloth and myself. When both of her attackers swung hard and high, Sloth dropped down and swept her much longer than usual leg across both legs of both chimeras. She used her powers to sever their legs as she went, taking them out of the fight.

The two fighting me came in, one with an overhead chop, and the other with a sideways slash. I blocked the slash with my left hand shield array, sidestepped the chop, and cut both chimeras down with a counterattack before they could regain their balance. The fight was over. I put the dismembered chimeras out of their misery.

"If they had more guards, they'd have shown up in that fight," noted Sloth.

"So now we should be in the clear," I agreed.

In terms of defenses, that was true. Unfortunately, we were in the alchemy lab of Shao Tucker. While looking for the red water storage, Sloth pulled aside a curtain and gasped in horror. I rushed to her side, and saw hundreds of incomplete chimeras floating in tanks, all with Nina Tucker's face.

"He's trying it again," whispered Sloth, hurt and angry. "This is where he started when he was making me. He was trying to make a new me!"

"He can't now," I reminded her gently. "We stopped him. It's over."

"No part of this was going to be easy, was it, Greed?"

"No," I said sadly, "but it looks like this is the last step." I'd found a set of red water tanks and an access to the underground storage. Etching a transmutation circle on a piece of metal, I tossed it into the tunnel to start breaking down the red water. As to the tanks, I opened the spigot on one and started swallowing the material to replenish my body's resources. After a moment, Sloth turned away from the tanks of creatures with her face, opened another spigot near me and did likewise.

When we'd emptied the two tanks we'd been drinking from and felt our strength replenished, Sloth spoke. "I can't wait to get back to our world where ewe can get red stones from plants. Needing to feed on human lives like this again..."

"I know what you mean," I replied.

"Are we going to try to carry the other tanks or are you just going to drain them into the tunnels below?"

"Actually, I wanted to try something?"

"Oh?"

"We need to reopen the Gate to get Ed, Al, and Winry home. And we have no idea how many red stones that will take," I said.

"You want to try and open the Gate here, since we're going to use up the stones anyway," Sloth guessed.

"Yes, but I think you and I should go inside it when we do. We know the Gate can open in multiple places on a given world. Rather than cross over to our world, I want to see if we can use it to get into allied territory and link up with Ed and Al faster."

"Can we navigate that precisely?" asked Sloth.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I think it should be possible, but since we're in the heart of Germany, it'd be hard to end up somewhere it'd be harder to get to them from."

"If you think we can pull this off, I'm in," said Sloth.

I nodded to Sloth and opened the valves on the remaining red water tanks just enough that they'd gradually drain into the reservoir I'd dropped the transmutation circle into. Then, keeping a close eye on the levels of material in the tanks, I clapped my hands. A glowing blue transmutation circle appeared over Sloth and my heads. The same array Thule had originally used to send their soldiers to Liore. The circle moved down towards the floor, passing over Sloth and I.

Step one had worked. We were now before the Gate, and I'd seen how much red water was used up getting there. As the double doors swung open, we confronted the Gate Children. Keeping them from taking parts from us was no more difficult than on our previous attempts. Within the Gate itself, there was an abundance of alchemic energy. As the knowledge began flooding into our minds, we did notice a peculiar side effect. Both Sloth and I resumed our original appearances, the omniscience of the area overcoming the mental manipulations I'd performed to help us blend in in Berlin.

As I had hoped, the knowledge of how to navigate to our destination came to me, and I pushed open the double doors of the Gate. The same blue transmutation circle that had accompanied our departure drew itself at our destination, passing from the ground and up, revealing Sloth and I, then vanishing as it passed the top of my head. Looking around, I got my bearings. We were a few miles outside the city of London.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Perhaps Shao will take the offer Greed left him with and end his own life. Perhaps he will be captured and tried as a war criminal for his actions when the war is over. Perhaps he will go on the run and spend decades fleeing Mossad, accumulating injuries that he can't heal along the way. No matter what happens, any threat the Sewing Life Alchemist ever presented is over.


	40. The Manhattan Project

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 40) The Manhattan Project  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

Before we'd gone our separate ways, Ed, Al, Winry, and Noah had agreed to leave word how to find them with Edward's contact, Winston Churchill. I expected difficulty getting in to see him, being a foreigner with no identifying documents, but apparently my and Sloth's descriptions had been left with the guards, and we were quietly ushered inside.

"The Iron Sole Alchemist, I presume," said the man who's office Sloth and I had been brought to as he extended a hand toward me.

"An honor to meet you in person, Prime Minister Churchill," I said, taking his hand and bowing slightly.

Churchill smiled in recognition at my gesture, then offered his hand to Sloth. "I want to thank you both for coming," he said shaking Sloth's hand. "Since you're here, I presume you have news about the Nazi alchemy project."

"We do," I said, unsure of exactly how much he knew. The Prime Minister gestured for us to take a seat.

As we sat down, he began, "I only know so many of the details. I spent some time with Hohenheim Elric during the last war. He tried to explain how things worked in your world, but I confess, I understood less than half of it. I was surprised when Edward contacted me about a Nazi alchemy program. I'd been led to believe it was impossible in our world."

"It can be done here," I acknowledged. "It requires a high amount of specialized knowledge from our world, and a willingness to sacrifice human lives for power."  
Sloth added, "We managed to eliminate the Nazis' access to the former, and we were hoping you could help with the later."

Churchill took the hint. "Are you certain you've permanently eliminated their ability to use alchemy against the rest of the world?"

"They may have a handful of red stones left to fuel alchemy projects, but they've got no one who can tell them how to use them, and no way to replenish their supply," I explained.

"Excellent," said Winston Churchill. "Then all that remains is to sort out what to do with you two. I presume you're no more willing to help us start our own alchemy project than the Fullmetal Alchemist was?"

"That's right," I said, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. "As I said, performing alchemy in this world must be fueled by human sacrifice, and I'm not interested in setting you down that path."

Churchill just nodded. "I'd prefer to have every weapon possible in this war, but if that's your decision, we'll have to make due. Edward and the others indicated they were willing to use their gifts on our behalf to help end the war, even if they weren't willing to teach our people alchemy. Are you here offering the same?"

Sloth and I nodded.

"Well, then," said the Prime Minister matter of factly as he took some papers from his desk drawer, "welcome to the Manhattan Project. These papers will serve as identification."

"Daughter?" asked Sloth glancing at me after going over her papers.

"I wasn't planning on having your paperwork mention neither of you were human," noted Churchill. "In which case, an alternate reason needed to be fabricated for why I'm sending them a four year old."

"Right," she said and tried to suppress giggles at the identities we'd need to maintain.

. . .

The distance Sloth and I traveled from London to the laboratories working on the Uranium bomb was farther than either of us had traveled in our lives. We crossed an ocean, then halfway crossed a continent before we finally reached our destination. I smiled at finding that we would be working in a desert.

We were greeted by Ed, Al, Winry, and Noah, all of whom had been settling in during my time trying to shut down Shao's Philosopher Stone project. Once the six of us got some privacy, Sloth and I filled them in on what had happened.

"We've mostly been right here," explained Al. "Brother and I have been studying and helping out with the math. Noah's been interrogating the scientists we captured. And Winry's been helping make test equipment."

"The military here are trying to keep everyone in the dark," said Edward. "Only a handful of people are even supposed to know what we're making."

"They're afraid of the weapon falling into the wrong hands," said Noah.

"That was our concern too," I said.

"I'm still not sure these are the right hands," said Ed. "I'm not sure there are right hands for something like this. But I know the Nazis and their allies are the wrong hands."

"Now that they're back, we can go home any time, Ed," said Winry.

"No," he said. "We have to see this through. One way or the other."

. . .

Nuclear physics was hard. Edward had been in this world as the field of science developed, and had kept up with the research. Alphonse had spent the last year playing catchup. Sloth and I threw ourselves into the books and papers, but just catching up with what was already known was proceeding slowly and left both of us feeling useless.

"It's not as though producing a chain reaction like this is hard," I said in frustration to Sloth as I sat at the desk of the small room we shared. "It's just coming up with a design they can actually manufacture with the tools they have. Every time I think I'm on to an idea, I reach a paper that explains, in detail, why it won't work."

Sloth looked up from where she laid on the bed, several papers and a notebook laid out around her, and the alchemy powered pen I'd given her in her hand with one of our red stones affixed. "And it's not like we can just say it's impossible, as far behind as we are. If we could, we could just leave now."

"I really envy Noah right now. With her powers, we could get up to speed and start actually contributing."

"What if we could?" said Sloth, something clicking in her brain.

"What are you thinking?" I asked.

"Most of what I know about alchemy, and I guess everything else, was programmed into me by my father to make me more useful as an agent. We could do the same thing for this."

I shook my head. "He could only imprint knowledge he already knew. I can't imprint nuclear physics I don't understand."

"No," acknowledged Sloth, "but Edward and Alphonse could."

"It'd use up red stones," I said, considering, "but we've got more than enough to get everyone home. I'd have to explain the alchemy to them, but that has to be quicker than getting us up to speed normally."

. . .

After we found Ed and Al, and explained our proposal, both young men looked at us like we were insane. Edward spoke first.

"After everything that bastard Shao put you through, you want someone to mess with your mind again?"

"That was against my will and without my knowledge or consent," said Sloth. "There's a difference."

"I won't do it," said Alphonse. "I understand it's your choice to go through with this or not, but it's my choice if I participate. And after spending all that time questioning if I was human, I just can't do this."

"I'm not human," snapped Sloth. "Body and mind, but no soul. I'm trying to take advantage of the benefits of not being human so it isn't a complete loss."

"Sloth?" I asked, kneeling down to look her in the eye. "Do you want to be human?"

She took a deep breath. "It doesn't matter. Turning a homonculus human is just theoretical anyway. No one's ever done it. And even in theory it'd require a Philosopher Stone."

"Of course it matters," I said. "We've both been through the Gate. You know how much knowledge is out there that we haven't even scratched the surface of. Just because we can't do something now doesn't mean we have to give up on it forever."

"For the longest time, getting my human body back looked impossible," said Alphonse. "But in the end, brother didn't even need the Stone to make it happen."

I smiled gratefully at Al's support, the said, "So, what do you want, Sloth?"

She took a long moment. It was a big question after all. "I'm happy with my life," she started. "I don't want to die, and losing my powers would suck. I guess I just feel obsolete. You, Izumi, Mustang, my father. You all have all the advantages of being a homonculus, and you have souls. I don't even know what a soul is, beyond an alchemy enabler, but not having one bothers me sometimes. It's not something I'd want to jump into, or risk losing who I am now for one, but the option would be nice, you know?"

"We can try to find you that option," I told Sloth. "If it means anything, Shao believed the important thing was the mind. The collection of memories, experiences, and personality traits that make you who you are. I may not think much of the man, but here, I think he had the right idea."

"I had my soul during our journey," said Alphonse, "but when my memories started slipping away, that's when I started to lose faith. Being able to still use alchemy didn't even occur to me as a measure of if I had a soul or not."

"Hohenheim of Light," said Edward, "our father, believed souls are a kind of energy source. That souls of the dead passing through the Gate become the energy to fuel transmutations. He also found out you can damage your soul by using a Philosopher Stone to steal other people's bodies. Do it enough times and your body starts to rot."

"Whatever the case," I concluded, "soul or no soul, I don't want you thinking you're not important, meaningful, or worthy as a person."

"Thanks, Greed. Alphonse. Edward. Sorry for snapping like that."

"It's okay," said Alphonse, laughing. "You should have seen me when I snapped at Ed over this stuff."

Edward joined his brother, laughing at their old quarrel. "I didn't exactly do a great job comforting you. I couldn't even spit out my own stupid question and got mad at you for drawing your own conclusions."

. . .

"So, they're not going to help us flash imprint ourselves with nuclear physics," said Sloth when we got back to our room. "I guess it's back to being useless until it's time to leave this world." She plopped down face first on the bed and made no move for the books and papers surrounding her.

I sat down next to her and put a hand on her back. "They don't want to hurt us," I said, gently rubbing her back. "Speeding up the process and getting up to speed sooner would be wise, but I can see why they said no."

Sloth grumbled something with her face buried in the mattress, but it was pretty clear she wasn't feeling comforted.

"Besides," I added, rubbing Sloth's shoulder over her oroboros mark, "I think I like being the only one who gets to touch you like this."

Sloth turned her head at that, so her words wouldn't be muffled and asked, "Why did I turn back into a little kid when we passed through the Gate?"

"We get exposed to all the knowledge in the universe when we see the Gate," I said. "Our real memories of who we are included. The Gate seems to override false memories. It doesn't erase them, but from exposure, we know the truth."

"And remembering our true forms, we took them back on again. I guess on the plus side,, we have a backup plan if someone messes with our memories again. But it also means no changes we make to our appearances will stick."

"If I'm really that ugly, we can just make sure to redo the transmutation after each exposure," I offered. That earned me a playful swat from Sloth and seemed to improve her mood.

"I know you like me, Greed," she said. "And I appreciate the reminders. It's just that... I didn't think I'd ever get to grow up. Then, when I was suddenly an adult, it went away before we'd done anything but use it as a disguise."

"I don't know," I argued. "It seemed like quite an exclamation point for when you told your father you'd moved on with your life."

Sloth smiled and sat up next to me and leaned into my side.

"If you want," I said, stroking her hair, "we can design you an adult form that'll be more than a disguise. Then I can put the changes into a stone powered device like your pen so you can change whenever you want."

"Really?" asked Sloth, excited.

"Of course," I affirmed. "It's your body, and your life. Even if I prefer you as you are, I'd rather you had options and weren't dependent on me."

Sloth kissed me, then hopped off the bed and ran over to the desk. "My pen can be lots of different colors," she said, holding it up. "Can I have more than one alternate form?"

"However many you want," I replied smiling.

Sloth busied herself drawing several alternate appearances. She still wasn't at Armstrong's level of ability, but it communicated the basic idea well enough. We spent the rest of the day talking over her options. The conversation involved answering a lot more questions about my preferences than I was expecting, but Sloth was clearly enjoying the design process.

. . .

The next day, I retrieved a handful of red stones from the stock Ed, Al, Winry, and Noah had brought with them to the facility. I made sure there would be plenty of stones left to get us back through the Gate, then returned to the room Sloth and I shared to work on the array structures for Sloth's new appearances. This would be more complicated than changing the color ink in a pen.

I needed to clear some work space, since the papers I'd been trying to learn nuclear physics from were still spread out on the desk. I went to sweep them off to the side of the desk when the red stones I was carrying under my arm unexpectedly reacted. Suddenly, it was as though the formulas and equations leapt off the page. Concepts I'd been struggling with were instantly obvious, and information in papers I hadn't gotten around to reading yet, likewise made itself clear.

Then the red stones burnt out, went dark, and left me wondering what just happened. Sloth apparently had the same question.

"Greed, what was that?"

"I'm not sure," I said. I looked down at the papers. Ink hadn't literally leapt off the page, but I was able to confirm that it was the content of those writings I had instantly assimilated. "I think I just learned nuclear physics."

"What do you mean?"

"It's happened before," I said, working through it out loud. "When we fought in Ishbal and I touched the red stone and knew how to use it against you. And more recently, when Ed, Al, and I got dumped in a red water reservoir, and it was almost like being in the Gate. That's why the Philosopher Stone gets called the Red Teacher."

Sloth looked at the papers I'd touched, then back at me before asking, "So, you can use red stones to instantly learn anything that's written down?"

"I think so," I confirmed, awed at the possibilities.

"I guess this means my new forms will have to wait," she said smirking. "We need to make up for lost time."

. . .

Leaving a small buffer in the red stone supply over what we'd need to open the Gate, Sloth and I set out to use the rest to make the best use of this newfound ability that we could. I absorbed a library's worth of scientific knowledge and then turned around and imprinted that knowledge on Sloth. In a few days, we'd mastered subjects that would otherwise have taken years of training.

It couldn't solve the problem of how to make a functional nuclear weapon without alchemy, but it got Sloth and I to the point we could follow and make useful contributions to the conversation. It was still challenging to get anyone but Edward and Alphonse to listen to us. I eventually managed to offer insight on the math often enough that the other researchers acknowledged I knew what I was talking about. Sloth had to consistently channel her ideas through one of us. While a lot of that was based on her apparent age, Noah and Winry had similar issues being listened to.

Ed, Al, and I continued to pass along Sloth and Noah's ideas for the bomb while Winry muscled her way into the groups working on the delivery system. She'd invented half a dozen improvements by the time we were ready to test our bomb. She was annoyed at not getting credit, but we were trying to keep a low profile anyway.

"At least the other mechanics are listening to you without needing to hear it from one of the boys," said Sloth as she helped unpack equipment at the bomb range that had been selected for our test.

"Only because if they didn't, I'd knock them over the head and do it myself," said Winry.

"It's really just second nature to both of you to be treated like experts," said Noah.

"Well, I am the best automail mechanic in two worlds," said Winry proudly.

"I'm a little more used to being underestimated," said Sloth. "The smart ones back home know better, but I can't really make my point without revealing too much."

"Well, we won't be here much longer," I noted.

"You are planning to take me with you this time, right?" asked Noah.

"After the war, things will probably get better for your people," said Edward. "Are you sure you want to leave just when things are looking up?"

"Everyone goes back to the world they were born in, is that it?" replied Noah hotly.

"You've helped us out immensely," I replied. "Of course you're free to come with us."

"Assuming things haven't changed too much, we know some people who can help you get resettled," added Sloth.

"Changed?" asked Winry. "I know it feels like longer, but we haven't been in this world that long."

"Time doesn't pass the same on both sides of the Gate," clarified Alphonse. "I don't know how consistent it is, but it definitely wasn't hte same when my soul was spanning both worlds."

"So, we could go back and find a day's passed, or we could go back to find years gone by," pondered Winry.

"No point worrying about that now," I offered. "Not when we're about to set off a massive nuclear bomb that might kill us all before we get the chance."

"We're safe," said Noah. "We've got a pretty good idea how big this is going to be."

. . .

We'd been setting up equipment for days, hoping to learn all we could from the detonation of our bomb. Everyone had gone to bed for the evening. Sloth and I were curled up together in our tent, when we were snapped to awareness by an explosion.

We rushed outside and found the test site was being bombed. The project was top secret. No one was supposed to know we were here. The idea that the enemy could have gotten bombers here even if they knew about the project was just insane.

But questions would have to wait. The planes were moving off, but I could hear panicked screams all over the camp. Ed, Al, Winry, and Noah stepped into view as Sloth and I ran towards the nearest sound of screams.

"Grab some red stones and help the injured!" I called out to them while Sloth drew the transmutation circle on her arm that would let me fuel my alchemy off the red stones in her body.

Two men had been knocked unconscious by the explosion in the first structure we reached. The place was on fire, and both of them had been burned. I leapt through the flames with Sloth and clapped my hands. Landing near one man, I pressed my palms to his chest, alchemically rebuilding the damaged tissue of his skin and lungs. I rushed to do the same for the other man as Sloth hefted the first onto her shoulder. Both men were alive and uninjured when Sloth and I dragged them out. Elsewhere in the camp, I saw two distinct bursts of the signature blue light of an alchemist who'd seen the gate. To my surprise, a third burst of red light flared elsewhere.

One more question for when the emergency was over. I rushed to find more injured. This man was conscious, but in shock. A large piece of shrapnel had penetrated his abdomen.

"Stay still and close your eyes," I told him. When he complied, Sloth removed the metal fragment from his body, and I closed the wound with Alchemy.  
Between us, everyone at the camp survived the night, with the few who'd received alchemic treatments writing the experience off as a bad dream.

. . .

"Are we stranded now?" asked Winry the following morning.

"I left a margin of error in our supplies," I said. "We've used that up and then some. But my numbers didn't account for the stones in my and Sloth's bodies."

"So, there's still a chance we can open the Gate for the moment, but if we waste any more energy..." said Edward.

"Then we'll need to consider replenishing it," I finished.

"What?" demanded Alphonse. "Wasn't the whole point of you going into the camps to put a stop to sacrificing people for alchemy?"

"It isn't as though I'm happy with the idea," I shot back. "The red stones keeping my body alive are supposed to come from plants, not people, but here I am, with a tank full of human-based red stones in me, because I don't have another choice."

"We aren't to the point of needing to do that yet," said Sloth. "We could just leave now and not risk it."

"That's not an option," said Edward grimly. "The bomb is almost done, and someone needs to be ready in case they decide to misuse it."

"You can't police them forever, Ed," said Noah, who'd been the source of the red flare, healing someone using alchemy thanks to knowledge taken from the Elrics' minds. "Maybe it is time to go home."

Ed shook his head. "If I leave now, what was the point coming back to begin with?" There was a pained expression on his face, like he was holding back tears.

"Fine, we'll wait and see how they use it," said Sloth, "and deal with it if something goes wrong."

"How long do you think it'll take to gt the camp relocated?" asked Winry, changing the subject.

"They'll probably want to figure out how the enemy found us and plug the leak before we try this again," I noted.

Giving a long-suffering sigh, Edward went off to get information. Out of all of us, the military was most comfortable talking to him. While we waited, the five of us heard shouting and ran to see what was wrong. We found Edward reeling back his fist to punch a man in uniform in the face. Alphonse expertly pulled Edward into a full nelson before his brother's fist could strike home.

"Let me go, Al!" screamed Edward. "This guy's got it coming for sheer stupidity!"

"What happened?" asked Winry.

"It was their own God damned plan that bombed us last night, because this idiot didn't tell anyone there were people in the bombing range!" Edward continued to struggle futilely against Alphonse as he yelled.

"Is this true?" I asked.

"This is the most highly classified project on the planet," noted the soldier. "The risk of an enemy spy piecing together what we're doing here is just too great."

"So instead you let all of us nearly get killed because you couldn't make up an excuse to tell them not to bomb us?!" continued Edward.

"Can we agree you took 'need to know' too far?" I asked the soldier, not quite sure Alphonse shouldn't just let Ed go.

"There's no such thing as too far with a weapon of this magnitude," replied the soldier. "I would think you of all people would realize that."

"So that you know," said Alphonse mildly, "if something like this happens again, I'm not holding brother back."

The soldier shrugged and walked away.

. . .

Less than a month later, as we were finalizing our test preparations, it happened again. Another bomber flew into the test range in the middle of the night and rained explosive shells down on top of a vitally important project the pilot wasn't allowed to know existed.

As before, we all rushed out to help the injured. And as before, our efforts prevented this incompetence from costing any lives. Unfortunately, now our stock of red stones, including those in my and Sloth's bodies, was too low to open the Gate. We were stranded unless we made more and that couldn't be done on this side of the Gate without taking human lives.

"Do you think we could use that smug bastard who's ass you kept me from kicking as raw material?" asked Edward once we'd finished assessing our situation.

I shook my head. "He wouldn't be enough."

"So, we're back to being stranded again," noted Alphonse. "Do you think someone else will come looking for us in a few years?"

It was a possibility I hadn't considered, but once Al pointed out the pattern, it was unmistakable. If we didn't make it back, someone else might get trapped attempting yet another rescue.

"We can't let that happen," I said.

"We don't have a choice," pointed out Winry. "If we can't get back, we can't tell anyone else not to try a rescue. Besides, they might succeed."

"Or they might bring enough forces to establish a permanent presence here with regular reinforcements," said Sloth. "Everyone I can think of with the resources to try is in the military."

"And we might get the war we were trying to stop anyway," said Ed with dawning horror. "We should've left when we had the chance. The bomb was less of a threat than that. Hell, the Nazis already surrendered without this bomb being finished."

"What about sacrificing people who are dying anyway?" suggested Sloth. "Find people with fossil disease or something like that who'd otherwise die in agony. Build up our stock that way until we have enough to open the Gate."

"Fossil disease?" asked Noah.

"It doesn't exist here," said Edward. "Dad spent some time cataloging the differences between the two worlds."

"Still," I said, "some awful disease exists on this side people would rather have done with quickly."

We got quiet and thoughtful. We had options, but all of them involved crossing some sort of line. There was no good choice, only varying bad ones.

. . .

The continuing preparations for the test were a welcome distraction from our worries about leaving this world. Finally, the day had come. The bomb was placed in a tower to simulate the effects of an air-burst, and observation points were set up at what we hoped was a safe distance. One of the scientists was trying to defuse the tense atmosphere by taking bets on how big the explosion would be.

The six of us who were aware of the other world prepared to watch the results, donning the welding goggles the military had provided.

"If that thing doesn't go off, it'll be someone's job to walk up to it and fix it," noted Ed grimly.

"That's going to be me," said Al, cheerfully. "I thought of that possibility a while ago and had Winry make me this."

Alphonse pulled a cover off what we'd assumed was a pile of test equipment, but turned out to be a suit of armor.

"If the bomb doesn't go off, I can attach my soul to this armor and use it to go see what's wrong without anyone risking going into the blast range."

"Let's all hope it doesn't come to that," I said. "I don't like the idea of having to explain that to the other scientists."

At the announcement, we stopped chatting and got our heads down. There was a tense moment, then we bore witness to the detonation of the atomic bomb. It was bigger and brighter than the alchemy that had destroyed Liore.

No one who witnessed what we had unleashed was unaffected. There was no doubt in our minds. This weapon would end the war with Germany's remaining allies. The question was, what would be left after it did. The awe and reverence with which the assembled were treating this event was a good sign. I could make out a number of muttered prayers as the responsibility that came with this weapon sunk in.

Not one for religion, I heard Edward say, when the sound of the explosion passed, "These had better be the right people."

. . .

Author's comments:  
With the atomic age begun, and our heroes without enough red stones to return to their own world, hopefully all our heroes have learned will be enough to find, if not the right path, at least the least bad of their options.


	41. Hiroshima

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 41) Hiroshima  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

After we'd detonated one bomb, and confirmed our theories, building more was a much simpler process. We went over the data collected from the test and pressed on as we waited for word to come down about how the nuclear weapons were to be used. We didn't have to wait long.

Alphonse and Sloth took turns eavesdropping on communications, so when the decision to drop an atomic bomb on a populated city was reached, we heard about it first. Edward led our group barging into the office of the base's military commander to demand explanations.

"This was a joint decision between the leadership of all three contributing nations to the project," said the officer, taking the intrusion better than I would have expected.

"Blow up a mountain and tell them to surrender," demanded Edward. "There's no good reason to kill all those people."

"That option was considered," said the officer, not unsympathetically. "Tell me, Edward, what happens if we tell them to watch a particular mountain, then the trigger on the bomb malfunctions. We just handed the enemy a working atomic bomb prototype. And if we don't tell them ahead of time, how will they know we aren't taking credit for something we didn't do?"

"Germany already surrendered," said Alphonse. "Japan's alone. Do we really need to use the bomb? We can't just be dropping it because we spent so much time and effort making it, can we?"

"The conventional assault being prepared before you confirmed the bomb worked would've cost more lives than the bomb kills," said the officer.

"Do we need to invade at all?" asked Noah. "They're an island. You can just blockade them until they surrender."

"That just trades deaths in combat for deaths by starvation," he replied. "Look, I have a lot of respect for you people. You're a hell of a lot smarter than I am. But this decision wasn't made lightly. All the alternatives were considered. War isn't pretty, and sometimes there aren't good options. I'm sorry."

. . .

"Is he wrong?" I asked when we were alone. "Is there a better option they didn't think of?"

"They're going to issue an ultimatum," said Noah. "They aren't mentioning the bomb specifically, but they will threaten total destruction if Japan doesn't surrender. No one really expects them to, but they are trying that much at least."

There was a long silence.

"So, that's it," said Winry. "There's nothing we can do that won't make things worse." She was crying. Ed and Al looked like they should be too. Sloth and I were just blank and numb. Noah was the only one of us who was composed.

"We won," she said eventually. "The genocides, the mass rapes. The war is going to be over soon. The side trying to stop those atrocities got the bomb before the side committing them could."

"I'm not saying you're wrong," I said. "That doesn't make the innocent civilian deaths in that city an easy pill to swallow."

There was another stretch of silence.

"Damnit," said Edward, "even when we find the right people, they still end up using it. Isn't there anything we can do?"

"We can make the sacrifice less wasteful," I said, surprising even myself.

"You want to use the Grand Arcanum?" asked Alphonse.

Growing more certain, I replied, "I can get into the target city before the bomber arrives, perform the alchemy just before the bomb detonates, erasing any evidence of what I'd done."

"Making a philosopher stone is fatal, Greed," Sloth reminded me.

"A homonculus might survive the process," I said. "Shao wanted to confirm that theory using me in his camp. I don't think there'll ever be a better time to find out for sure, since the victims are already going to die anyway."

"And you're willing to risk that?" demanded Sloth.

"I'm not going to risk anyone else to find out," I replied. "And this wouldn't be the first time I've risked dying to get answers."

"Do you even have enough red stones to do alchemy on that scale?" asked Winry.

"You don't need much," I said. "It's a chain reaction. The people killed by the reaction provide the energy to keep fueling it."

"If you do this just before the bomb drops, will it even matter if you succeed?" asked Noah. "You and the Stone will be right under an exploding nuclear bomb."

"If I survive, I can use the stone to escape through the Gate before the bomb goes off," I replied. "I can link back up with you all afterward."

"Greed, you could die," reiterated Sloth.

"I have enough red stones in my body to regenerate my brain," I said. "All the alchemists who died making the Stone were human, and could actually die of exhaustion. Hohenheim's soul attachment after making the Stone indicates the problem is in the body. I wouldn't even be suggesting this if I didn't think I could survive it."

"What happens to the Stone afterward?" asked Edward.

"We use it to open the Gate and get home," I said. "After that, I don't know. It seems pointless to plan that far ahead before we even have it."

"Is this about making me human?" asked Sloth. "It isn't worth risking your life for that."

"Part of it is giving you the option," I admitted. "But it's more than that. If we tried to build up red stones the other way, how many times would we have to go up to the dying, carrying red stones that could save their lives, then not save their lives? This way, we don't need to keep making the same awful choice over and over. Just one of us has to make it, just once."

. . .

The plan was for me to be smuggled onto a plane dropping pamphlets advising civilians to evacuate cities at risk of being bombed. I'd been given the last of our red stones. If this failed, Ed and Al would have to use what was in Sloth's body to implement the backup plan.

In the bomb bay, packed in with the pamphlets, I was wearing a parachute. Edward had given me brief instruction in its use and assured me the only thing I had to worry about was being shot at as I drifted harmlessly to the ground.

I was dropped out of the bomber like cargo, and amid the flapping pamphlets couldn't begin to orient myself. I was tumbling, dizzy, and with no idea which way was up. When I fell below the cloud of papers, it became clear I was spinning dangerously. The sky and the ground whipped past one another in my view as I struggled to get under control enough that I could pull the cord on my parachute without getting tangled in it. Fortunately, while this was my first time using a parachute, it wasn't my first time falling from a great height, and I was eventually able to steady myself.

I was still disoriented when I deployed the chute, but I was right side up and no longer spinning. Fabric billowed out of the backpack, and I found myself dangling by the harness Winry had checked and rechecked before I left. I started to think I should have waited longer to use the parachute as I drifted gently over the city that was to be destroyed by the atomic bomb.

True to Edward's prediction, soldiers did start shooting at me as I got closer to the ground. As luck would have it, I was over top of a river that ran through the city. I released my harness and plunged into the water below. Thanks to the experience from the last time I'd dropped into water, I was able to keep myself from breathing. Since I didn't need air, I waited at the bottom for a long time. Anyone waiting for me up top would assume I'd drowned.

I hadn't actually learned to swim yet, having been distracted by other things. I was thinking I should have made time as I trudged along the river bed to return to the surface. I emerged cautiously, and began to sneak through the city. I didn't have enough red stones to waste in a fight, and if I was captured, I'd be held captive in a city about to be obliterated with nuclear fire.

I wouldn't be mistaken for a native of the island, so I stuck to the shadows and traveled by cover of darkness as I made my way toward the city's center, and the aiming point for the bomb. Keeping out of sight of people also helped me avoid thinking about what was coming for them, whether my plan worked or not. Finally, I reached a good spot near the center where I could watch the sky undetected.

. . .

A full day and night, I stared at the sky, going over in my head the alchemy I'd need to perform, and the precise timing required. I'd settled on a specific version of the Philosopher Stone array that had been used on the city beneath Central. It would deconstruct the people, but leave the buildings and structures intact. It seemed like it ought to be slightly more efficient than the one used in Liore.

I was rechecking the energy requirements in my head when I saw the plane. I tensed and watched carefully. If I hadn't missed it, this was the spotter plane, verifying the target site and taking some before pictures. That suspicion was confirmed when it passed overhead without dropping anything. The next plane would be the real thing.

Nearly an hour later, I spotted the second aircraft. I clapped my hands together and stared, every muscle taunt. There was a specific maneuver the plane was supposed to employ after dropping the bomb in order to get out of the blast radius. The instant I saw the sharp turn that indicated the atom bomb was away, I raised my palms to the sly, fingers outstretched, and unleashed the alchemy I'd been preparing.

In the sky above me, just above the rooftops, a brilliant blue array drew itself a mile wide. It took nearly every scrap of amplification I could draw from the red stones to get it that large, but checking and rechecking the math had proven worth it. With the Philosopher's Stone array shining a brilliant blue over the city, I used the energy in one last red stone fragment and activated the terrible array.

Then the dying started. The transmutation circle in the sky changed from blue to red as it fueled itself on the deaths of tens of thousands of people. I was mercifully spared the screams of the dying city, as the process of activating the city-wide transmutation circle had drained me completely, and I collapsed to the ground.

I awoke in the light of the newly forged Philosopher's Stone, keenly aware that my body had indeed died forging the Stone, but regenerated back to life a moment later when exposed to the Stone's energy. There was no time for anything else. I grasped the glowing, fist-sized chunk of red crystal and opened the Gate, vanishing from ground zero an instant before the atomic bomb exploded.

Within the Gate, exposed to the full knowledge of the universe, I had a single question on my mind. "Was it worth it?" Images flashed before my mind's eye. A second atomic bomb being dropped. Thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of times more powerful than our meager creation. Generations living in fear of a coming war that would end the human race once and for all.

The Gate Children were tearing at my body while I let myself focus on the Truth. One had nearly deconstructed the wrist of the hand I held the Philosopher's Stone in. I released a pulse of energy from the Stone, deconstructing the Gate Children clinging to my body and driving the rest back.

More images appeared before me as I navigated to my destination. Nations poised on the brink of war, but unwilling to take the final step that would lead to Armageddon. Lines of communication being opened. Competitive drives between peoples unwilling to risk a war no one could win, channeled into other goals. Just as the Gate reopened, and I was deposited in a small room in the Manhattan facility where the others were waiting, a single image blazed before my mind's eye and left me sobbing on the floor.

The image was of a plaque reading "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind."

. . .

"Give him some room!" called out Edward.

"Greed, what happened?" asked Sloth.

"He hasn't been irradiated," reported Winry.

Rolling over onto my back, I released the death grip I had on the Stone and allowed it to roll out of my hand and onto the floor. "It's going to be okay," I declared with a broad smile and tears streaming down my face.

"Are you okay?" asked Sloth, squatting down next to my head.

I turned to look at her, and said, "I saw how this turns out. While I was in the Gate. This world, these people, they're going to be okay."

"What did you see, Greed?" asked Sloth, concern in her voice.

"The atomic bomb will change things. Not all at once. It'll be scary for a long time, but everyone will remember what happened to Japan, and the fear of it happening again will lead to countries looking harder for peaceful solutions. The bomb is so terrible a weapon, another war on this scale will be unthinkable."

"He saw the Truth holding the Philosopher's Stone," said Alphonse quietly.

"I know, Al," replied Edward.

"So, it's really over?" asked Noah.

"No," I said, my smile fading as I got up off the floor. "Japan is the first and last country to be attacked with the atom bomb, but they won't surrender until the second one drops, making it clear more could follow."

"Another city?" asked Sloth.

"Yes," I said sadly. "I saw that too."

"So, blowing up a mountain really wouldn't have worked," mused Edward bitterly. "I guess I owe the commander an apology."

"He didn't want this any more than we did, Edward," said Winry.

We all took a deep breath.

"Sloth," said Edward, "you should hold on to the Stone. The rest of us might accidentally activate it if we touch it."

"Right," said Sloth, retrieving the Philosopher's Stone.

"Are we sending Greed into the other city?" asked Noah.

I shook my head. "The red stones in my body are used up. I couldn't survive making a second Stone without replenishing myself."

"Then all we can do is wait," said Winry. "If Japan surrenders after the next bomb, that confirms Greed's vision and we can all go home."

"Yeah," said Edward wearily.

. . .

Author's comments:  
I figured making our heroes wait a few decades to know whether they made the right decision would be needlessly cruel, even by the standards of what I've already put them through. With the close of World War II, at hand, our heroes can tie up loose ends and return to their own world.


	42. Romantic Interlude 9

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 42) Romantic Interlude 9  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

***WARNING***  
This chapter contains sexually explicit material involving young children. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story. If you do not want to read about this, go directly to chapter 43.  
***WARNING***

. . .

Sloth and I returned to our room in the complex. She sat down the Philosopher's Stone on a dresser, sat down on the bed and turned toward me. I closed the door and turned the desk chair so it was facing her, then took a seat.

"Do you feel better now that you know you can survive making the Stone?" asked Sloth.

"You're still mad," I observed.

"Greed, you could have died! Do you think that would've made me happy? Just because it worked doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly stupid to risk it!"

"You're right," I said, hanging my head. "And even if I'd been sure about the transmutation itself, I left basically no margin for error. And I didn't think about what would happen if I choked at the last minute and couldn't go through with it."

"Just don't ever do something that stupid again," implored Sloth. "Especially not something I can tell myself was because of me."

"Sloth, I... None of what's happened since coming to this world has been your fault or because of you. I've been an idiot coming up with bad plans."

"Greed, I've thought I'd lost you so many times since we came here. I need you to promise me you won't put me through that again."

"Sloth, I am so sorry. I promise I'll be more careful. You won't have to go through this again."

"Point taken?" she asked.

"Point taken," I affirmed.

"Good," she said, the anger and hurt leaving her voice. "So, what're we really going to do with the Philosopher's Stone?"

"I really hadn't thought that far ahead. I had a vague idea of holding on to it until you decided if you wanted to be human. Maybe run some experiments to see its true capabilities. But mostly, I am just really tired of being in this world."

Sloth sighed. "You and me both. It seemed like a fun adventure at first, and maybe it would've been if we'd just found Ed and Al and come straight back."

"A lot of people lived who wouldn't have if we'd gone straight back," I noted. "So, for all the suffering and sacrifices, at least it hasn't been a waste."

"Do you think things can get back to the way they were between us?"

"Sloth, I love you. Nothing that's happened on this trip has changed that, or could."

In a quiet voice, she said, "You haven't touched me since I left you in that concentration camp."

"I thought you needed space after what happened with Shao. Time to think. You thought I was the one taking space after the camp. And you thought if I could clear away the memories of what happened, I'd be okay again. We've wasted so much time."

I strode over to where Sloth sat on the bed and kissed her. When our lips met, a feeling of absolute relief rushed through us. The war was nearly over, the people of this world would be safe, we had the means to return to our world, and most importantly we both still loved each other after all we'd been through.

I ran my hand up Sloth's leg under her skirt while both of us probed one another's mouths with our tongues. Literally coming back from the dead earlier that day had not been as life affirming as this long overdue physical affection. Sloth fumbled to unbutton my shirt without breaking our desperate kiss.

"The door!" exclaimed Sloth suddenly, breaking the kiss, but not quite letting go of my shirt. "Someone could walk in."

Squeezing her butt, I smiled and said, "I locked the door."

Smiling as she focused on getting my shirt off, Sloth added, "And since everyone's been so worried about spies, the whole building's soundproofed and checked for bugs twice a week. So, we won't have to be too quiet."

At that point, Sloth finished getting my shirt opened and latched her eager mouth on to one of my nipples. I leaned by head back and let out an approving moan. While Sloth suckled, I pulled her panties down. She shifted without letting go so I could get them all the way off.

I tossed aside Sloth's underwear and shrugged my shirt the rest of the way off. I pulled Sloth's dress up, exposing her butt and lower back to open air. She released her hold on my nipple, leaned back, and raised her hands above her head. I pulled the dress off her in one motion, revealing the grinning form of a small child wearing nothing but her shoes and socks.

"Can we lose the shoes and socks too?" I asked, kicking off mine.

Sloth's grin became mischievous. She stood up off the bed and took a few steps so my gaze could take in her whole body. Then, she turned her back to me and bent over, keeping her knees straight as she untied her shoes. I quickly got out of my pants while enjoying the view.

Sloth lifted a leg and wiggled her toes to demonstrate. I scooped her up bodily in my arms and kissed her mouth, her chest, her cheek, generally whatever came closest to my lips before I set her down on the bed.

"I want to try something new," I said, looking down at the naked little girl on my bed. She'd missed this as much as I had.

"Name it," said Sloth, eager to get started.

"I want you to try using your feet," I said. I moved my erect penis into range, then took hold of Sloth's ankles when she seemed unsure how to proceed. I squeezed my penis between her insteps and let go, Sloth getting the idea quickly.

The view of Sloth's body was excellent as she awkwardly figured out how to pump my erection with her feet. It had been so long, and the tension I'd been carrying so great, Sloth had barely got the rhythm when I came. A stream of ejaculate spattered across Sloth's chest and stomach. She giggled in surprise, and more semen spurted out onto her naked body before I found myself spent.

"That was quick," she said, idly rubbing the semen on her stomach with her left hand.

"I knew the first one was going to be," I said. "That's why it seemed like a good time to experiment.

Sloth licked a finger and said, "While we wait for you to recharge, how about you use your tongue for a while?" She spread her legs.

I got to my knees and placed a hand on each of Sloth's thighs. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of my aroused lover, then leaned down and tasted the moisture that had already accumulated. Sloth groaned in pleasure and tried to grind her crotch into my face while she continued to lick the semen off her fingertips.

I teased at Sloth's clit with my tongue and probed inside her vagina. Her breathing picked up, and she started squirming. I lost my grip on her thighs, and Sloth's pelvis rammed into my nose, somewhat painfully.

"I'm sorry, are you okay?" she said instantly.

Nothing was broken or bleeding, so I replied by gripping her butt hard with both hands and picking up the speed and force of my tongue work until she couldn't have formed coherent sentences if she'd tried. The only sound I heard from her after that point were a series of increasingly desperate gasps as I pushed her towards orgasm.

My tongue was thrust deep inside her while I nibbled at her clit with my upper lip when Sloth reached her limit. Her whole body tensed, and I relished the feeling of her vaginal contractions squeezing my tongue. I made a game of how long I could draw out her orgasm, one we both enjoyed immensely. In this world, almost out of red stones, and limited to human stamina, it was inevitable the orgasm would end, but with proper care, it lasted long enough.

I pulled my head back and admired my handiwork. My exhausted and spent lover's semen decorated, flat chest rose and fell with her heavy breathing. She was blushing brightly, and wore nothing but an immensely satisfied smile.

"If you're not too exhausted," I offered, "I think my refractory period's over."

Her heavy breathing continuing, Sloth opened her legs again.

"Actually," I said, still enjoying seeing the results of my efforts, "I still feel like experimenting."

A shudder ran through Sloth's overstimulated body, and she nodded her assent. I rolled her over onto her stomach and put the tip of my erect penis between her butt cheeks.

"My butt?" she asked.

"If you're up for it," I offered.

"Okay," she said with a tremble still in her voice.

"If this doesn't feel good, we can stop any time you want," I said as I pressed the tip of my penis against the anus of my prepubescent lover. Sloth made a conscious effort to relax, and between us, my penis gradually started to vanish up her tight butt.

It was a new experience, and I quickly found I enjoyed it when Sloth's conscious relaxation faltered and her butt involuntarily clenched around the shaft penetrating her. The view was something impressive too, as I continued to press deeper and deeper into my lover.

Sloth grunted with exertion and told me, "Don't stop! Go harder!"

Attentive to my lover's requests, I stopped pausing whenever I felt her sphincter squeeze down on me, and instead humped even harder at those moments. Sloth's barely articulate sounds of approval told me I was doing something right. I reached around Sloth's hip and grabbed her crotch hard to get leverage for a particularly hard thrust into Sloth's ass, and she called out in orgasm again.

I could feel the surging spasms of her climax communicated to my penis through her tensing and releasing anus. Her ejaculate squirted out onto my gripping hand, and I thrust with more force and enthusiasm than before. Twice more, I forced my penis in, when my own orgasm came. I held on to Sloth's crotch as hard as I could while I pumped semen into her tight butt. Spasming and twitching, we both collapsed next to one another on the bed. My penis came out of her butt, followed by a trickle of my ejaculate.

"What did you think?" I asked when I could catch my breath.

"I think my asshole's going to be sore until we're back through the Gate," she replied. "It was good, but maybe we hold off until we're regenerating normally again."

"I think I can live with that," I said happily.

"Let's just relax together for a while now," she suggested. Then she adjusted her position on the bed and stuffed my flaccid penis in her mouth.

"Very relaxing," I said with a laugh, then leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Tension, worry, and stress have been building up for so long, our heroes now have a chance to put it behind them.


	43. Loose Ends

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 43) Loose Ends  
by Howlin

(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

. . .

The next few days brought confirmation that the Japanese weren't going to surrender despite the demonstration at Hiroshima. Word came down that the second bomb was to be used. Plans were being made as to how the weapons would be used if this second attack didn't break the Japanese military's will to fight. Those of us who'd seen the Gate and understood my prophecy just waited grimly for the price of ending this war to be paid.

In the meantime, we got word about upcoming trials planned for crimes committed by Germany and its allies during the war. The world wasn't going to let the genocide, the inhuman medical experiments, or any of the other cruelties of the camps go unpunished. If Shao hadn't taken the way out we'd left him, he'd be among those on trial. Sloth and I deliberately avoided looking too closely at the lists. The important thing was justice was being done.

Photographs came in of the destruction of Nagasaki. It looked so clean and sterile from the distance the photography plane had photographed the mushroom cloud. It didn't seem to do justice to the sheer number of lives lost.

The second atomic bomb did the job the first started, and convinced the Japanese that this was a war they could not win. A notice of surrender came in, and the war was officially over. Celebrations broke out throughout the base. Rather than cheer or join in the drinking and celebration, Ed, Al, Winry, Noah, Sloth, and I just breathed a sigh of relief.

Sloth retrieved the Philosopher's Stone. Noah led us down into the lockup where the Nazi nuclear scientists were being held. She'd been down here often enough that we were waived through. The six of us went into the cell of the scientist from our world who'd first brought the atom bomb here.

"So, you won your war and you've no further use for me," he declared.

"You were right about one thing," I told him. "The atom bomb will be the defining weapon of this world. As the weapon the world agrees is too horrible to ever use again."

"You're coming back to our world," said Edward. A smirk crept over his face and he added, "Where you'll stand trial for the attempted murder of a State Alchemist."

"I'll keep an eye on him while we're in the Gate," offered Alphonse.

"Do you remember what we told you about navigating the Gate?" asked Sloth.

Noah nodded.

"Everyone ready?" I asked. They nodded and Sloth held up the Stone towards me.

I clapped my hands and a glowing blue transmutation circle drew itself above us, then swept down over the seven of us. The Gate swung open and we entered it together. Shadowy arms reached out to grasp at us as the Truth forced itself before our minds' eye.

Noah was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the universe coursing through her. Sloth severed the dark limbs reaching towards Noah using her powers and dragged Noah along with the group. Edward watched over Winry, clapping and deconstructing any Gate Children who drew near to her. Alphonse dutifully did the same for our prisoner.

I handled the navigation, keeping the group together as I moved us towards our own world. The Gate loomed before us. The entire party, with all limbs and organs intact gathered before the Gate. I clapped my hands and forced the double doors open.

. . .

In the town square at the center of Liore, the transmutation circle that had deposited enemy soldiers drew itself for the second time. The people of the city ran for cover, and blue uniformed soldiers took up defensive positions. The circle raised off the ground, revealing the seven of us. I recognized a group of soldiers pointing guns at us.

"Iron Sole?" asked one of the soldiers, blinking.

"Hi, Frank," I said. "It's good to see you guys again."

"What is all this?" asked Ken.

"A rescue mission," I declared. "I brought the Fullmetal Alchemist home."

"You won't hold me here!" yelled the scientist suddenly. He clapped his hands and slapped them down on the ground. Blue alchemic light shot through the ground and slabs of the ground flipped vertically, hurling myself, Noah, Winry, Edward, and Alphonse into the soldiers surrounding us. A slab meant for Sloth flipped up too, but she passed through it.

Sloth's lips curled into a grin. She held the Philosopher's Stone in her hand and slammed it into the ground. A glowing red transmutation circle appeared on the ground with the Stone at its center. A stone hand rose out of the ground and closed around the scientist, pinning his arms to his sides.

"How did you do that?" I asked as I disentangled myself from Melvin, Frank, and Ken.

"Check out the circle," she offered as she pulled the Philosopher's Stone from its center.

"Get this joker into custody," said Edward, who clapped his hands and removed the stone fist, forming a pair of stocks to keep his hands apart.

"You drew the circle with your powers," I noted in awe. "It's designed like your pen to fuel itself directly off a stone. That's brilliant, Sloth."

She smiled proudly.

Rose arrived on the scene. "What happened here?"

"Mission accomplished, Rose," I said. "The people who attacked won't ever be coming back."

. . .

Rose brought the six of us to her office while the military brought our prisoner in to be interrogated.

"It's good to see you again, Rose," said Edward when we were alone. "Liore looks better than I imagined."

"We've had a lot of help with the reconstruction," said Rose.

"I see the Swarm Alchemist and his men moved in since I left," I noted. "Good. They did good work in Ishbal."

"Can we talk about where you've been?" asked Rose.

"We'll tell you everything," promised Sloth, "but could Greed and I get something to eat? It was pretty draining on the other side."

"Of course." Rose sent a subordinate out who returned quickly with two bowls filled with red stones.

"You know what they are?" asked Alphonse.

Rose smiled. "They're people who've been helping us. What kind of body they have shouldn't really matter, should it?"

Al shook his head and smiled, no doubt reflecting on how we'd all reacted to him when he first came to Liore, and how far we've come.

"You're really in charge here?" asked Noah.

"That's right. I'm the local mayor, though I do have to answer to the Assembly in Central. I don't think we've met."

"This is Noah," said Edward. "She's from the world on the other side of the Gate. She helped us get back and asked to come with us."

"I'm pleased to meet you," said Noah.

"You're in good company," said Rose. "Thank you for bringing them back. If there's anything I can do for you in return, say the word."

"We were thinking you might want to give her a job," noted Sloth. "She's trained in sciences we've never seen in this world."

"We can talk about that in detail later," said Rose. "The military's going to have questions. What are you going to say to them?"

"He's going to tell them about the atom bomb no matter what we do," said Alphonse.

"Atom bomb?" asked Rose.

"A weapon with enough destructive force to destroy a city the size of Central in one hit," noted Edward.

"The invasion of this world was about trying to retrieve things to make building the weapon easier," said Noah.

"It shouldn't change that much," I noted. "The State Alchemists can already cause destruction on that scale." Considering for a moment, I added, "Incidentally, is Mustang still in charge of the Assembly?"

Rose nodded.

"Figures that jerk would take over the whole country while I was away," said Edward with an affectionate smile.

"Are you planning on telling them about the Philosopher's Stone?" asked Rose.

"How did you know about that?" asked Winry.

"Liore's been manufacturing and processing red water to fuel our reconstruction. And I spent some time with Dante near the end. I can tell the difference." She indicated the Stone Sloth was still carrying. "I don't care what you do with it, but I don't want Liore made a target again."

"We won't let that happen," said Sloth.

"Do we tell them?" I asked the assembled group.

"Mustang's trustworthy, but I doubt he's got all the corrupt elements out of the hierarchy yet," said Edward. "All it takes is one of them to find out there's a Philosopher's Stone and they'll all come after it."

"We could destroy it," suggested Alphonse. "Use it up like the one in my body."

"Is there any urgency?" asked Sloth. "So far, everyone who knows we have the Stone is in this room."

"You think we should keep it a secret?" asked Winry.

"What about putting it in the place Hohenheim used to protect his Stone?" I suggested. "Wrath and Shao only found it because Hohenheim was trying to force Dante into a confrontation. No one else should have any cue it's up there."

"That place near Risembool you told us about?" asked Winry.

I nodded.

"That could work," said Edward. "At least until we figure out what to do with it."

"I can get you on a train to Risembool," offered Rose. "I'm sure the military will send someone after soon enough, but it should give you enough time to hide the Stone."

"Thank you, Rose," said Alphonse.

. . .

Noah stayed behind in Liore. She would answer the military's questions and try to satisfy their curiosity so they wouldn't come looking for us and the Stone. After that, hopefully, she'd be able to make a new life for herself there.

Ed, Al, and Winry had a tearful reunion with Pinako when we made it back to Risembool. She insisted we stay the night before running off on her, and no one could tell her 'no'.

"Once the Stone's placed, homonculi won't be able to approach the building," said Sloth over breakfast. "We'll need a human to place the Stone and to retrieve it later. Greed and I can't do it on our own."

"The cliff's a hard climb," I added. "Part of why no one's stumbled on the place.

"I'll come with you," said Alphonse.

"Where Al goes, I go," said Edward, giving his brother a look. "We've spent too much time apart."

"Then where will you go?" asked Winry.

"Once the Stone's locked up?" said Edward. "We're coming straight back home."

At that, Winry grabbed Edward in an embrace. He smiled and returned it, wrapping his arms around her.

. . .

"Some things just plain aren't fair," complained Edward as Sloth and I helped the Elric brothers up onto the ledge.

"I did offer you both homonculus bodies that don't get tired so easy," I reminded him. "There's no reason I can't make yours taller while I'm at it," I added.

"Who're you calling a pint-size midget that needs a ladder to see over a counter?!" exclaimed Edward, leaping to his feet and shaking his fists at me.

"Good, so you're not that tired," I said.

"That's the place over there," said Sloth, indicating the church-like structure that'd been carved into the cliff.

"So, this is where dad was all that time," mused Alphonse. "He was so close, but there was no way to reach him."

"Before we put the Stone away," I said, "does anyone want to use it? Is there anyone you want to try and bring back?"

The Elrics looked at one another and nodded. Edward spoke for both of them. "We've learned our lesson. We agreed a long time ago that even with the Stone, we weren't going to try again." He touched his right shoulder and continued. "The automail's a good reminder. Part of why I didn't take you up on that new body offer."

"You're sure you can't think of anyone?" asked Sloth.

"We lost Nina to an alchemy experiment gone wrong," said Alphonse. "She ended up in constant pain until Scar ended her suffering. It would be cruel to make her an alchemy experiment all over again."

"What about you?" asked Edward. "We can try to use the Stone to make you human."

"I don't think I'm ready to take that risk yet," said Sloth. "Especially for something that might not really be possible, that I can't even say for sure why I'd want it."

"Well, if no one else has anything," I said, walking over to a particular spot on the ledge, "there is something I'd like to try."

I clapped my hands, kneeling down, and touched the ground. A sophisticated transmutation circle appeared. Sloth brought me the Philosopher's Stone. Her hands trembled a little as she handed it over.

"What are you going to do?" asked Alphonse.

"Raising the dead is uncertain and experimental," I acknowledged. "You've each done it, but the circumstances were unique. None of us wants to risk a human right now."

Holding the Philosopher's Stone in my right hand and cradling it to my chest, I touched the transmutation circle with my left hand. Blue light poured from the array's runes describing body structure and composition I'd committed to memory long ago. A layer of soil from around where I'd placed the array slid towards the center, cleaning a nearly imperceptible stain from the landscape. At length, the array fell dark, and in the center stood a brown dog.

"Loki?" I asked, unsure.

The dog's ears perked up in recognition, an he ran to me, his tail wagging and he eagerly licked my face. I didn't try to hold back the tears as I greeted my faithful companion who I'd never expected to see again.

Loki noticed Sloth and any question of whether this was really him vanished as he positioned himself between her and I, and let out a deep growl from his chest. His hair stood on end, but since I hadn't yet reapplied his alchemy arrays, his body didn't transform.

"It's okay, boy," I said, and set a soothing hand on my dog's head. "She's on our side now."

He may not have understood my words, but my tone communicated the meaning well enough. Loki silenced his growl and relaxed a little, but didn't move from where he stood. I gestured for Sloth to approach, and she did so cautiously.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," said Sloth, extending her hand slowly towards the dog.

Loki turned his head towards me with a confused look, then sniffed at Sloth's hand. Sloth gently touched his fur and the dog's tail started to wag.

"Looks like he remembers the little girl who played with him in the laboratory," I said with approval.

While Sloth and Loki got reacquainted, I walked over to where Ed and Al were waiting and I handed over the Stone.

"Thank you for letting me try," I said as I placed the Stone in Ed's hand.

"I'm glad it worked," said Al.

The brothers entered the structure and returned quickly. They'd found where to place the Stone to allow it to power the defenses. Once that was done, we climbed back down the mountain and returned to the Rockbells' in Risembool.

. . .

Loki and Den ran in circles around one another while Winry asked, "What are the two of you going to do now?"

"I've been thinking about that," I replied, glancing at Sloth. "I think we managed to set all our affairs in order before we left this world, in case we didn't get back."

Sloth nodded. "I've apologized to everyone who's still around to be apologized to, and we got Liore through the uncertain part of its reconstruction."

"So, now that you've made it back, there isn't really anything major left to be done," noted Edward. "I know the feeling."

"We haven't really discussed it, but I do have a thought," I said, taking Sloth's hand in mine. She squeezed it in response. "It's about the Gate."

"What about it?" asked Alphonse.

"You've been inside," I started. "You've seen how much knowledge was in there. More than the entire world. More than both worlds. I think the Gate opens to other places, other worlds we can't even imagine."

"You want to go exploring?" asked Sloth.

"We're immortal," I said. "If we stay here, who's to say we won't end up like Hohenheim and Dante in a few hundred years? Exploring the multiverse, encountering new ideas, would go a long way towards remembering we aren't all knowing gods."

Sloth considered for a moment. "Just so long as we stick to worlds were our powers work. I don't want to get stranded again."

"It's a deal," I replied.

"What if you're wrong about the Gate and get dumped back where we just left?" asked Edward.

"We'll bring red stones with us just to be safe," I replied. "If we end up there, we'll come back immediately."

"Will you come back if you do find a new world?" asked Winry.

"Of course," said Sloth. "That's how it works. You go out, explore, then you come back and tell everyone all about the things you've seen."

"I couldn't have put it better," I said with a smile towards Sloth.

"We know time acts strange in the Gate," said Alphonse. "There's no way to tell how long you'd be gone for."

"It might be possible to learn to control that," I said, "but you're right. Once we leave, hours, years, or decades could pass. Basically no matter how much time we spend on a given world."

"What if you could control it?" asked Edward. "What if you could force the time rates to stay in synch, or even keep them out of synch in your favor?"

"How?" asked Sloth.

"You think the Philosopher's Stone could do that?" asked Alphonse.

"We know the Gate responds to the Stone," said Edward. "That's why it opened at Liore and Central when Thule forced it open from their side. It isn't a sure thing, but if anything can do it..."

"You'd let us take it with us?" I asked, stunned.

Edward rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Well, it's not like we're going to use it, and keeping it around'll only risk trouble with the military."

"And you're family," said Alphonse firmly. "Anything that gives you a better chance to make it back while we're still around to hear about your adventures."

Sloth ran over and hugged Alphonse tightly around his waist. "Thank you," she said with sincerity.

"I agree," I said, extending my left hand to Edward. "Thank you."

Ed took it and squeezed. Then his eyes widened. "Wait a minute, does this mean we climbed up that cliff for nothing?"

"Worse than that, brother," said Alphonse laughing. "It means we have to do it again."

. . .

Preparations were made. Sloth and I each carried a shoulder bag of red stones, philosopher's flower seeds, pens, notebooks, and other assorted items we might need when exploring a new world. Edward, Alphonse, and Winry were gathered near where he Elrics' house used to be to see us off.

"We're expecting you back in a week," said Winry firmly.

"If you're gone more than a year," said Alphonse, "we're mounting a rescue mission of our own."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," I said. "Take care of each other while we're gone."

"Likewise," said Edward.

"Are you ready, Greed?" asked Sloth.

I nodded, and Edward handed me the Philosopher's Stone. I put it in my bag, and activated the array I'd prepared to summon the Gate.

Sloth waved broadly and called out, "Goodbye!" Then, Sloth, Loki, and I turned and stepped into the Gate.

. . .

In a room at the bottom of the Department of Mysteries, a veil draped over a stone arch parted. Two people and a dog stepped out.

. . .

Author's comments:  
Thus ends the tale of the Iron Sole Alchemist. A lot happened I wasn't expecting when this started all those years ago. Characters can surprise you.

I've given some thought to chronicling the travels of these characters as they visit other worlds, but this is where the story I originally outlined has come to its end. With Ed, Al, and Winry reunited and back in their own world. With the title character having mastered his craft and seeking new challenges. With Sloth having moved on from her origins and put the past behind her as far as she was able.

I hope everyone has enjoyed their time with these characters as much as I have. Perhaps one day you'll be able to read about the continuing adventures of the Iron Sole Alchemist.


End file.
